UFC 323 takeaways: Yan completes unimaginable career turnaround

Petr Yan regained the UFC bantamweight title Saturday night, shocking Merab Dvalishvili with a unanimous decision victory in the UFC 323 main event in Las Vegas.

In the co-headliner, Joshua Van became the new flyweight champion in anticlimactic fashion after Alexandre Pantoja badly hurt his arm 26 seconds into the fight.

Here are five takeaways from the final pay-per-view event of the ESPN era.

Yan is all the way back

Yan's career turnaround has been a sight to behold.

It feels like a lifetime ago that he was on a three-fight skid and had lost four of his last five. Following a lopsided defeat to Dvalishvili in 2023, many thought Yan's days as a bantamweight contender were over, his brief title reign just a footnote in the division's history.

But look at him now. Yan, at age 32, delivered the performance of a lifetime against a legitimate pound-for-pound great. He solved the impossible puzzle. He learned from the previous matchup, made adjustments, and fought as perfect a fight as you can versus a machine like Dvalishvili. Yan is back on top of the world, the end of the road nowhere in sight like it was - or at least seemed to be - a couple years ago.

It's hard to say how long Yan will be champion, but anything that follows this is gravy - because one expected him to be here.

Did Dvalishvili's activity catch up to him?

I almost hate to say it because I don't want to take anything away from Yan's performance, but it's worth at least considering whether four title defenses in a year was too much to ask even of Dvalishvili.

That's not just four fights against anybody. That's four fights against the best of the best. The training camps, weight cuts, and, of course, the fights themselves all take a toll on a fighter's body. Perhaps all of that finally caught up to Dvalishvili.

If you ask him whether he regrets making a two-month turnaround to fight Yan, he'd probably say he'd do it again in a heartbeat. That's the fighter's mentality. But was it smartest thing in the world? In hindsight, maybe there's a reason Dvalishvili was the first UFC fighter to ever attempt this many title defenses in a year.

Bantamweight is suddenly super interesting

The one objectively great thing about Yan dethroning Dvalishvili is that the bantamweight division is, all of a sudden, completely wide open and very intriguing.

Dvalishvili deserves an immediate rematch as the arguable bantamweight GOAT. That's what I want to see most. But he should probably take some time off. So, in case Yan fights someone else while Dvalishvili rests and heals up, a fight against Umar Nurmagomedov - if he gets past Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC 324 - sounds awesome. So does a rematch with Sean O'Malley if he beats Song Yadong on the Jan. 24 card.

This is what happens when a dominant champion loses the title. It spices things up and forges new matchups, adding a new level of excitement to the division. Nurmagomedov and O'Malley - both of whom lost to Dvalishvili earlier this year - should especially be thrilled that someone else rules over the division now.

Van-Pantoja 2 is a must, even if not right away

Speaking of rematches, how do you not run things back with Van and Pantoja after that heartbreaker of a "fight"? This was arguably the most intriguing matchup of Pantoja's title reign to date, and it ended in 26 seconds, thanks to a fluke elbow injury. What a way for Pantoja's impressive run as champion to end.

For what it's worth, I have no issue with Van celebrating the title win, as he worked hard for this moment. It's also not his fault that Pantoja got hurt. This isn't how he wanted the fight to go. But to say Van is clearly the best flyweight in the world would be ... questionable at best. He might be, but he has yet to prove it. Until he beats Pantoja - or at least defends the title against someone else - it won't really feel like he's a champion.

UFC CEO Dana White said Pantoja could be sidelined for a while, so if Van fights someone else in the meantime - say, Tatsuro Taira, who scored a huge win over Brandon Moreno on the undercard - that would be fine. But Pantoja needs to fight for the title as soon as he's healthy. And hopefully it's against Van because it could've been an epic fight.

Cejudo left it all in the Octagon

Henry Cejudo was never a fan favorite, but it felt like the MMA community appreciated what he did in his retirement fight.

The former two-division champion was outmatched versus Payton Talbott, which wasn't too shocking considering it was a 38-year-old facing a 27-year-old. But Cejudo left it all out there in what turned out to be quite the slugfest. He ate heavy shots but kept pushing forward and trying to win.

It was a gutsy, inspirational performance - arguably more so than some of his best wins - from a legend of the sport. It was also a reminder that this a young man's game.