The first of three title fights on the UFC 259 pay-per-view card will be a battle between 135-pound champion Petr Yan and the No. 1 ranked challenger to Yan’s thrown, Aljamain Sterling. According to the pre-fight odds, this just might be the most tightly contested of the night’s three championship contests.
Yan captured the vacant bantamweight title in July with a dominant victory over former featherweight king Jose Aldo. The Russian scored a fifth-round TKO in that contest, to pick up the victory. The title had been vacant since Henry Cejudo surrendered the belt after a May defense where he scored a TKO win over Dominick Cruz.