Getty/UFC
Bantamweight champion Petr Yan has
broken his silence on the reason for his withdrawal from UFC
256.
Over the weekend it was revealed that Yan’s title defense against
Aljamain
Sterling had been pulled from the Dec. 12 card. As a result,
the promotion rushed to book Deiveson
Figueiredo against Brandon
Moreno to serve as the new UFC 256 headliner.
Yan revealed on Instagram Live (translation courtesy of
RT Sport) that numerous factors played a role in the
postponement of the bout. The UFC is reportedly looking to
reschedule Yan vs. Sterling for early next year.
“Everything’s in force for the fight. It’s going to be postponed
for about a month and a half, but everything’s in order,” Yan said. “There were different problems, with the flight, with the visa,
during training I flew away for a visa deadline, lots of
factors.
“We decided with the team to move everything to next year, perhaps
the card will be more suitable… Everything is good, training
continues.”
Yan claimed the vacant 135-pound belt with a fifth-round technical
knockout of Jose Aldo at
UFC 251 on July 11, his seventh consecutive victory within the Las
Vegas-based organization. The 27-year-old Russian says he wanted to
make sure that all circumstances were optimal prior to his first
championship defense.
“In the past, I could fly out to battle without thinking about
anything, I could take risks,” he said. “Now I need to do
everything right, so that afterwards there won’t be any, ‘this
wasn’t right, that wasn’t right’.”