Petr Yan broke the unfortunate series of defeats by winning the fight against Song Yadong. It was a terrible streak of three consecutive defeats in a row, but the Russian overcame it with honor despite the fact that he was not fully prepared for the fight, as he later admitted in an interview.
The fighter said that due to a leg injury, he could not train fully, so he did not have preparatory sparring. Unfortunately, this did not help to fully cure the injury, so Petr Yan even entered the ring injured, without the opportunity to fully demonstrate his fighting skills.
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According to the fighter, during the fight he had to almost completely turn off his legs, as he was worried about the health of his limb. We had to win the battle the old fashioned way — with our fists.
“I fought with one leg for those 15 minutes. I wanted to kick more to the body, but it didn’t work. I had to turn on my boxing IQ. I haven’t sparred for a month due to a leg injury,” said Petr Yan.
This helped the fighter from Russia. And even though the start of the fight was with the Chinese, and in the first seconds of the fight Yang missed accented blows to the head and looked more closely at the opponent without wasting his strength, in subsequent rounds he turned the tide of the fight, completely controlling Yadong both in the stand and on the ground.
Ultimately, the fight lasted all the allotted three rounds and the judges unanimously gave the victory to the Russian with a score of 29–28. Thus, Peter ended his series of three consecutive defeats and for the first time in two and a half years won a difficult victory over a solid opponent.
New battles await him ahead. Petr Yan is determined and is going to completely restore his reputation by rolling over all his opponents. So he already knows the name of the next opponent. The management of Petr Yan seriously began organizing the fight of his ward against Marlon Vera. By the way, he also took part in this tournament, but lost devastatingly to champion Sean O’Malley in a rematch.