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Petr Yan is fighting for the belt this weekend but many fight fans know very little about him. The Russian website sports.ru has published Yan's biography in their Open Letter section. I have translated the whole thing for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!
(My own comments are bold + italic)
Source: https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/openletter/2802109.html (includes more pics)
I grew up in the Far North, fought in nightclubs for 4000 rubles and now I am fighting for the UFC title
An open letter from Petr Yan.
Petr Yan will fight for the UFC BW belt on Saturday night. This will happen at UFC 251, the first big Fight Island event in Abu Dhabi, where an octagon stands right on the beach of the artificial island of Yas. Petr's rival will be the legendary Brazilian Jose Aldo.
Once again: the Russian fighter will fight for the UFC belt against the legend of MMA in a unique place, but almost no one is talking about it. Yan can become just the second UFC champion from Russia - the first, as you know, was Khabib.
To our question about the media silence the Archangel Michael club fighter reacts calmly: “I definitely don’t feel offended. I am pleased with how everything is going. I have no great desire to be hyped up somewhere, to become too popular. My media impact is growing, and the fact that they don’t talk about me on Channel One is Channel One's problem.” (he means Russian TV)
Now is the best time to find out who Petr Yan really is.
In the Open Letter blog, he will tell everything himself: how he grew up in the boxing section of Dudinka (the largest town of the Far North - 35 thousand people), how he moved to Omsk alone at the age of 15 and fought in night clubs there, and how he reached the "Fight Island".
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None of this would have happened if not for the older brother. Our age difference is four years.
I watched him return home from boxing training, beat up and exhausted, and somehow I envied him. I really wanted to be beat up too. For some reason, my brother did not want me to go with him. I had to act cunningly. Once I spied what things he was packing up, put the same stuff in my bag, waited until he left the apartment, and five minutes later sneaked after him.
I got to my brother’s coach - Nikolai Nikolaevich Surzhikov. It was a small basement room. After the first training session, I was barely able to crawl back home. And two weeks later I has my first competition. And won.
Then I was 12 years old, sixth grade. Shortly before that, we moved from a village in the Krasnoyarsk region to the city of Dudinka. If anyone does not know, this is the Far North - 45 days of polar night and four months of above zero temperature per year. But the main thing is that everything is available there. Shops, the airport a hundred kilometres away, and sports gyms - in the village I could not pick and chose, but here I could.
My friend’s mom worked as a concierge in an acrobatic gym. At six in the morning she would open it, so we jumped around before school on all kinds of trampolines. Then I went to another training sessions - there was football, and taekwondo, and even weightlifting. I studied in the second part of the day, so I managed to do everything. Immediately after school I would go to boxing class. I would return home dead tired.
At school, I fought at every break, but I was never the instigator. I was in class “B”, and the guys from “A” said that we were sheep (Russian play on words). And either there were fights because of such incidents, or when I stood up for the weak. I am from the village, I could not tolerate injustice.
Over time, everyone somehow became friends anyway.
In Dudinka, I wanted to finish nine classes and go to college. Did not see my big goal in sports. But Nikolai Nikolaevich insisted that I try and fly to Omsk. He knew: if I stay in the North, there will be no progress. For good classes you need a big city. You need gyms and competition.
Surzhikov through one guy, Kostya Maykov (RIP, he himself was from the north and moved to Omsk), talked with coach Yuri Vladimirovich Demchenko. Mom bought me a ticket and said: “Try your best. And for a return ticket, if anything happens, we will find the money. ”
So I went.
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At the station I was met by Yuri Vladimirovich.
Can you imagine? 15 years old. Alone. A city of over a million. And I arrived from a village, a small town. No relatives, nothing.
I was aspiring for the Olympic reserve. But I didn't make it. The recruitment was already closed. There were only two further options: either fly back or stay in a hostel.
I was assigned to a sports class - and so I graduated from high school in Omsk. Two years I was away from home, then flew back to Dudinka, looked at it and realized: I must return to Omsk. The town is too small, and in Omsk I started getting good results in boxing. I enrolled to the PE institute, I studied.
My mother mostly helped me with money. I trained hard, but I also had to earn a little bit somewhere.
Those days in Omsk there was a nightclub called Atlantis. It was considered prestigious. Every Tuesday there were fights there. They would quickly set up a ring, we fought, the ring was immediately removed - and the disco began in the same place. For a professional fight they paid 4 thousand rubles. (approx 56$) So I did 6-7 kickboxing fights. I used to perform there at night - the fighters were current Thai boxing fighters, kickboxers, world championship medalists - and in the morning I had to weigh-in for the district boxing championship. I came there with my legs kicked off, so I asked the coach to put me in the draw a day later. To at least lie down a bit. And eventually I'd win the district boxing championship four times in a row.
I was not annoyed by the nightclub vibe, that everyone around was chugging. Somehow I did not pay any attention to it. There was another goal at that time: to go out, win and earn your pennies. I myself always tried to adhere to a healthy lifestyle - I did not smoke, did not drink, and trained. Sometimes I'd dance half the night after the fight, but even if I didn’t sleep, I was in the gym on the next day. Such self-discipline brought me to where I am now.
I got into the wave of popularity of MMA on time. I had the ambitions and the desire to try something new: after 7 years boxing was getting a bit boring, I did not have outstanding results, I did not win the nationals. And in MMA, federations began to appear in each region, and held district championships.
I made my debut in Irkutsk in 2013, learning about the fight 10 days before the tournament. I learned wrestling from YouTube, but I had a general instinct for it - thanks to street fights.
The first fight I won by knockout in the extra round - they gave 20 thousand rubles (282$). I paid for my rented apartment with the money - I lived there with my wife already. Then I had a fight in Omsk, signed a contract with ACB, won the championship there - and finally signed a contract with the UFC in 2018.
Now I have a fight ahead for the UFC belt. What I could not even think about before. What I didn’t even dare to imagine. It’s pleasant to realize that I just recently fought in Omsk nightclubs, and now I’m facing a legend on “Fight Island”.
I often tell myself: don’t forget where you came from and how it all began. These thoughts, scrolled memories motivate and warm my heart. I know that in Russia there are a lot of boys who are growing up in the same conditions in which I grew up. I’m watching many of the guys from Siberia are performing and are following my example: they’re coming from boxing, from the streets. I wish them only patience and faith in themselves. Work, work, work.
The recent time before the bout I was in Thailand. Arrived in February, planned to spend a month in the training camp. Then I decided to have the family fly in for a couple of weeks. And then an outbreak of coronavirus. Everyone began to fly away, but I thought that we could stay another month there, assess the situation. In Phuket, all was calm. Then the airports were closed: it was necessary to either wait in Phuket airport all day or go by bus to Bangkok. I thought: I have a pregnant wife and a kid. This is a huge risk - it is better to stay in Thailand.
We rented a villa with a pool. We lived there, bought produce, seafood, coconuts, fruits - solid vitamins. I laid mats at home and trained there. Now I realize: I did not notice how these four months flew by.
The quarantine is a difficult situation for the whole world. But I spent this time with my family. Since the start of my career, I have not had this luxury. Always in training camps, competitions, trips. And now four together - so awesome! Life is all about getting a family, leaving behind a new generation. Now I have two sons - and we are not going to stop there. I hope that I can provide an example and decent education for the boys. I still have brothers and sisters whom I help. Lots of work.
Am I afraid of anything after such a difficult path? Now I am speaking from the Bangkok airport, flying to Abu Dhabi for a fight. And it’s often scary. I get on a plane and I understand that my children are waiting at home, my wife. I want the flight to be fine.
My loved ones remained in Phuket - they are waiting for the youngest son's passport to be done so that they can fly back home.
And we will finally meet up in Russia.
TLDR version: born and raised in a Siberian frozen shithole village, went from fighting in night clubs for 50 bucks to a UFC title shot on Fight Island. And he remains humble.
Excellent job, bro. Thanks for the translation. It was definitely an interesting read. Although I wish he had thought to tell us what his amateur boxing record was & that he had gone into more detail about his decision to turn pro as an MMA fighter rather than as a boxer.
Yeah, you.re who I thought you were....
Yet I always get the impression that Dana doesn't like Russians (including Dagestanis) - exactly because of the mentioned fact that they usually DO NOT steer drama. Yan tried a little trash talk recently to hype himself up a bit and looks like it worked but I hope he stops that if he wins the belt. He has nothing but respect for Aldo tho, he said so many times.
