Petr Yan is set to face off against Sean O’Malley at UFC 280 in a much-awaited matchup. Ahead of the showdown, former bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo spoke about Yan’s strengths and weaknesses.
‘No Mercy’ is considered the favorite against O’Malley as a former champion and the No.1 bantamweight contender.
Cejudo uploaded a video to his YouTube channel where he reviewed clips of ‘No Mercy’ and broke down his approach.
‘Triple C’ pointed out the Russian’s tendency to keep his hands up:
“His hands are always up. He can walk into things too and Urijah’s not capitalizing on it. This is the one thing that he does so well, his hands are always up but he does a little too much. Which he leaves his legs behind right here.”
He then switched to Yan’s fight against Aljamain Sterling and addressed his takedown defense while relishing the opportunity to capitalize on the loopholes himself:
“This right here is going to get Petr in trouble, especially against a guy like me. Yeah, good defense but this is MMA, buddy. If you’re gonna do that, you better be really far. I am literally, like, licking my fingers. Jesus, just seeing the opportunities and how much the opportunities that I have against a guy like Petr Yan. These are the deficiencies that he has. He’s so good on his feet that he’s neglected all the other areas that he really needs help on.”
Watch the full video on Henry Cejudo’s YouTube channel:
Henry Cejudo writes off Sean O’Malley as “a hype train”
Henry Cejudo also has stark views on Petr Yan’s next opponent, Sean O’Malley.
‘Triple C’ was asked by a fan about his thoughts on ‘Sugar’ during a live stream on his YouTube channel. He spoke about O’Malley’s low ranking in the division and his leap to fight the highest-ranked contender:
“Yeah, I mean, I think we all know man. There’s things that Sean does do right but look what he did. He’s ranked number what? 13? Skips the line, all the way to fight Petr Yan. I mean, that’s gonna be interesting. When he fought ‘Chito’, he just couldn’t beat a guy like ‘Chito’. It even changes when you get to top five and then top three, so it’s different. A hundred percent, he’s a hype train.”
Cejudo went onto reference O’Malley’s TKO loss to Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera . He also warned the No.12-ranked bantamweight of the level of quality he will encounter against higher-ranked opponents.
Watch the complete livestream on Henry Cejudo’s YouTube channel: