Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan engaged in a fiery feud over ownership of the UFC bantamweight title between 2020 and 2022. Their first fight ended with Yan being DQ’d over an illegal knee. Despite how blatant the foul was, Sterling was widely accused of faking the an injury to ‘steal’ Yan’s belt.<\/p>\n
One year later, Sterling won their rematch via a razor thin split decision to legitimize his reign as the undisputed 135 pound champion.<\/p>\n
A lot of trash talk was spewed leading up to and between the two fights, with Yan fans being particularly nasty to ‘Funkmaster.’ Petr dubbed Aljamain a clown<\/a> after the DQ incident, and the American’s social media was flooded with clown emojis for months as he slowly recovered from neck surgery.<\/p>\n While Yan has never accepted the result of their second fight as legitimate, he seems to have moved past the public hate he exhibited for Sterling over the past few years. When he and his rival ran into each other in Abu Dhabi on Sunday leading up to their respective UFC 280 bouts, things were surprisingly cordial.<\/p>\n