Controversy

Yan vs. Sterling 2 Scorecard: Was Petr Yan Robbed at UFC 273?

Yan landed one more significant strike and won the last two rounds clearly. Sterling spent most of rounds two and three on his back, and the fight came down to the first.

By Jashan Oct 24, 2026 · 8 min read

At a glance

ResultSterling by split decision - 48-47, 48-47, 47-48; referee Keith Peterson
The judgesSal D'Amato and Eliseo Rodriguez for Sterling, Chris Lee for Yan; only round 1 split them
The statsSignificant strikes 63-62 to Yan; Sterling 2 takedowns from 22 attempts and 8:31 of control
The media11 of 18 media scorecards on MMADecisions had Sterling winning, 5 a draw, 2 Yan
The loserYan: "I think I won this fight and I got robbed."
Our card48-47 Sterling

What was at stake

The undisputed bantamweight title, and a first fight that settled nothing. At UFC 259 on March 6, 2021, Petr Yan was disqualified in the fourth round for kneeing a grounded Aljamain Sterling, and Sterling left as champion. CBS Sports and theScore both note that it was the first UFC title ever won by disqualification.

The rematch took a year. Sterling needed surgery on his neck and withdrew from the rematch booked for UFC 267, which theScore and CBS Sports both report. Yan fought Cory Sandhagen for the interim title instead on October 30, 2021, and won a unanimous decision, 49-46 on all three cards, according to Cageside Press and CBS Sports. So UFC 273 matched the undisputed champion against the interim one. Sterling came in at 20-3 and Yan at 16-2, according to Sherdog, which fits the 21-3 and 16-3 that CBS Sports gives after the fight.

The official scorecards

Each judge's rounds, from MMADecisions. Fighters Only confirms that the first round split the judges, and LowKick that all three agreed on rounds two to five; the official ufcstats record lists the same three totals. Scores are written Sterling first.

Judge	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Total	Winner on the card
Sal D'Amato	10-9	10-9	10-9	9-10	9-10	48-47	Sterling
Eliseo Rodriguez	10-9	10-9	10-9	9-10	9-10	48-47	Sterling
Chris Lee	9-10	10-9	10-9	9-10	9-10	47-48	Yan

Referee: Keith Peterson. MMADecisions, Fightful, Sherdog and Fighters Only all report the same split.

That is the whole controversy in one row. Every judge gave Sterling rounds two and three and Yan rounds four and five, so the title went to whoever won the first round, and two of the three judges said Sterling.

Round by round

Round 1 - Sterling on two cards

Sterling fought at range with kicks to the body and legs, front kicks and a standing elbow, while Yan walked him down and stopped both of his takedown attempts, which Sherdog, Fightful and Cageside Press all describe. Yan landed a left late in the round. Accounts of what it did differ: Fightful's live blog says it dropped Sterling, Sherdog says both men toppled over throwing punches and "nothing comes from either falling over", and Spencer Kyte, rewatching the fight, says Yan fell to a knee because he over-extended. The official statistics record no knockdown. The numbers lean Sterling's way: 19 significant strikes to 13, 11 of them to the body.

Round 2 - Sterling on all three cards

Sterling took Yan down in the second minute, took his back and locked a body triangle, then hunted the rear-naked choke and landed punches to the horn, which Fightful, Sherdog, Cageside Press and CBS Sports all describe. It was the most one-sided round of the fight: 17 significant strikes to 4, 42 strikes in all to 21, and 3:50 of control against none. CBS Sports wrote that it "could've been scored a 10-8 round (although none of the three judges did)", and all three of Sherdog's scorers gave it 10-8.

Round 3 - Sterling on all three cards

Sterling took Yan down again and was on his back almost at once, and he held it for most of the round, which Fightful, Sherdog and Cageside Press all report. CBS Sports and LowKick both note that he did less with it than in the second. The official count shows how little: Yan landed more significant strikes, 8 to 6, and more strikes overall, 20 to 8. Sterling's round was the position, 3:43 of control against 0:07, and all three judges gave it to him.

Round 4 - Yan on all three cards

Yan's punches put Sterling down early in the round, which Fightful and Sherdog both describe; the official statistics, again, count no knockdown. Sterling threw a strike that may have landed low and was not called, according to both, though they differ on how Yan reacted. Yan finished the round on top. It was his best round by the numbers: 18 significant strikes to 8, 48 strikes in all to 8, and 3:51 of control, with all four of Sterling's takedown attempts stopped.

Round 5 - Yan on all three cards

Yan stopped takedown after takedown: the official count has Sterling at none from ten attempts. Sterling briefly got behind him and kneed his leg, Yan landed part of a flying knee, and then Yan took Sterling's back and rode it to the horn, which Fightful and Sherdog both describe and CBS Sports puts as Yan having "closed the round with knees from behind". The numbers: 20 significant strikes to 12, 37 strikes in all to 13. Sterling said afterwards that Yan "beat my ass in that fifth round", according to CBS Sports.

What the numbers say

The official statistics, round by round (Sterling first):

Round	Sig. strikes	Total strikes	Head	Body	Legs	Takedowns	Control
R1	19 – 13	20 – 13	5 – 7	11 – 4	3 – 2	0/2 – 0/0	0:00 – 0:00
R2	17 – 4	42 – 21	14 – 1	1 – 1	2 – 2	1/2 – 0/0	3:50 – 0:00
R3	6 – 8	8 – 20	2 – 2	4 – 2	0 – 4	1/4 – 0/0	3:43 – 0:07
R4	8 – 18	8 – 48	2 – 10	6 – 4	0 – 4	0/4 – 0/0	0:00 – 3:51
R5	12 – 20	13 – 37	6 – 12	4 – 6	2 – 2	0/10 – 0/0	0:58 – 1:54
Total	62 – 63	91 – 139	29 – 32	26 – 17	7 – 14	2/22 – 0/0	8:31 – 5:52

Across five rounds the significant strikes came out almost dead level, 63 to 62 for Yan. Yan's clear lead in total strikes, 139 to 91, is mostly the fourth round, where he landed 48 to 8 from on top. Sterling's case is the two rounds he spent on Yan's back: 7:33 of his 8:31 of control came in rounds two and three, a figure Sherdog's By The Numbers also gives, along with his two takedowns from 22 attempts.

What the numbers cannot settle is the first round. Sterling landed more, mostly kicks to the body; Yan was the one walking forward, stopped both takedowns and landed the left that one live blog called a knockdown. That is a judgement call, and it decided the title.

The media mostly sided with Sterling. Of the 18 media scorecards collected by MMADecisions, 11 had Sterling winning, five had a 47-47 draw and two had Yan. The fans saw it the other way: of the 4,668 who scored it on the same site, the most common card was 48-47 for Yan, and 56.7% gave him the first round.

How we scored it

Round	MMA.SOCIAL	Why
R1	10-9 Sterling	Close. 19-13 in significant strikes with the body kicks; Yan's pressure and his left late were the best of his work but not enough to outweigh the volume.
R2	10-9 Sterling	Back mount, body triangle and the choke hunt for most of the round: 17-4 in significant strikes and 3:50 of control.
R3	10-9 Sterling	On Yan's back again for 3:43. Yan landed more, 8-6, but from underneath, with Sterling on his back for most of the round.
R4	10-9 Yan	Put Sterling down early and finished on top: 18-8 in significant strikes and 48-8 in all.
R5	10-9 Yan	Stopped ten takedowns and took Sterling's back: 20-12 in significant strikes.
Total	48-47 Sterling

Our card matches D'Amato's and Rodriguez's. The first round is the only one we would call genuinely close, and the fight turns on it: give it to Yan and he wins 48-47. A fair case can be made either way, which is exactly why this was a close decision rather than a robbery.

We stop at 10-9 in the second round. Sterling dominated the position, but Yan defended the choke throughout and was never close to being finished, and the strikes Sterling landed from the back were not heavy enough to make it 10-8 for us. It would not change the winner: a 10-8 there makes it 48-46 Sterling.

What happened next

Yan was in no doubt. "I think I won this fight and I got robbed," he said through a translator, as CBS Sports and Sportskeeda both report, and he asked for a rematch on the spot. "I knew that it was really close but I think I outpointed him," Sterling said, according to CBS Sports. Dana White sided with Yan: he said he thought "the judges blew that one" and that he had it 3-2 for Yan, as Heavy and LowKick both report. Sterling answered on Twitter: "Go watch the first round again. You are WRONG!", as Sportskeeda shows. Not everyone agreed with White. Spencer Kyte wrote that "no one got robbed here; this was an ultra-close fight that came down to one round, and maybe the scoring of another".

The third fight never came. Sterling defended the title against TJ Dillashaw at UFC 280 on October 22, 2022, winning by TKO in the second round with Dillashaw's shoulder injured, according to CBS Sports and Yahoo Sports. On the same card Yan lost a split decision to Sean O'Malley that drew far more anger than UFC 273: 25 of the 26 media scorecards on MMADecisions had Yan winning, and Sherdog named it its 2022 Robbery of the Year. Merab Dvalishvili then beat Yan 50-45 on all three cards at a UFC Fight Night on March 11, 2023, which MMA Junkie and CBS Sports both report. Sterling lost the title to O'Malley by TKO in the second round at UFC 292 on August 19, 2023, according to MMA Junkie and Fightful.

Yan's way back was slower, and it worked. He ended a run of three straight losses by beating Song Yadong at UFC 299 in March 2024, then beat Deiveson Figueiredo and Marcus McGhee on points. At UFC 323 on December 6, 2025, he beat Dvalishvili by unanimous decision, 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47, and was champion again, according to UFC.com and Cageside Press. He was booked to defend the title against Dvalishvili in the UFC 333 co-main event on October 24, 2026, which theScore and Cageside Press both report.

The verdict

Sterling vs. Yan 2 was not a robbery. The judges agreed on four of the five rounds, and the fifth, the first round, was close enough that either answer was defensible. Yan won the last two rounds clearly and landed one more significant strike over the fight; Sterling won two rounds just as clearly from Yan's back. We had Sterling 48-47, as did two of the judges and most of the media. If Yan was robbed in 2022, it was six months later, against O'Malley.

Full fight stats: Sterling vs. Yan 2. The rest of the night: UFC 273. More: the fighters with the most split decisions, the most disputed losses and the most title fights.

Sources

Questions

Who won Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling 2?

Aljamain Sterling, by split decision at UFC 273 on April 9, 2022, to unify the bantamweight title. Sal D'Amato and Eliseo Rodriguez scored it 48-47 for Sterling and Chris Lee scored it 48-47 for Yan.

What were the Yan vs. Sterling 2 scorecards?

Two cards of 48-47 for Sterling and one of 48-47 for Yan. All three judges gave Sterling rounds two and three and Yan rounds four and five; D'Amato and Rodriguez gave Sterling the first round and Lee gave it to Yan.

Was Petr Yan robbed against Aljamain Sterling?

We do not think so. We scored it 48-47 for Sterling, as did 11 of the 18 media scorecards on MMADecisions; five had a draw and two had Yan. The fight came down to a close first round. Yan said he was robbed and Dana White said the judges got it wrong.

How did Sterling win the first fight against Yan?

By disqualification. At UFC 259 on March 6, 2021, Yan was disqualified in the fourth round for kneeing Sterling while he was down, and Sterling won the bantamweight title. It was the first UFC title won by disqualification.

Did Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling fight a third time?

No. Both talked about a third fight after UFC 273, but Sterling fought TJ Dillashaw next and later lost the title to Sean O'Malley. Yan went on to win the bantamweight title back from Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 323 in December 2025.

Who landed more strikes in Yan vs. Sterling 2?

Yan, narrowly. The official statistics have him landing 63 significant strikes to Sterling's 62, and 139 strikes in all to 91. Sterling had 8:31 of control time to Yan's 5:52 and landed two of his 22 takedown attempts.