You have to keep in mind that Yan was given the Merab rematch less than 2 months ago

[wolffanghameha]

Yes but you can almost guarantee his coaches had been devising the gameplan and maybe their written flowchart for much longer, expecting Merab to be a problem they need to solve.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

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Yes, Merab must have went into the fight compromised for doing 4 training camps in 1 year- but you also have to consider than Yan's entire contender run leading up to this was against strikers.

He had less than 2 months to prepare for one of MMA's greatest wrestlers of all time and he managed to have a perfect response for every grappling scenario.

Yes, Merab will go into the trilogy fully recovered and refreshed, but the things in Petr's favor are:

• Merab dealing with psychological impact of just losing his title
• Merab having his chin and body possibly degraded after Petr's 5 round beatdown
• Merab turning 35 years old in a month (that's like 40 years old at bantamweight)
• Petr having a full camp to make his grappling EVEN BETTER

I still have trouble understanding how Merab is the betting favorite going into the trilogy.

It'll probably move into Petr's favor as the fight gets closer.

There's enough evidence now that Merab grapple-controlled Yan so decisively in the first match because Petr had a broken hand. The evidence speaks for itself and Joe Rogan said it himself.

You do know the announcement date for the fight isn't when the contracts are signed, right? The UFC offers both fighters fights well in advance... Typically over 3 months.

The exceptions are the short-notice fights when someone drops out.

 

[Conan the K-9]

In a rematch, where Merab is the challenger, he has no burden to keep the fight entertaining. Only thing he needs to focus on is winning. He will force wrestling much more and much earlier. He didn’t really commit to his takedowns last fight, but the few times he did it looked easy.
We will probably see a boring, control based decision, but it is what it is with the current rules.

 

[ChessJitsu]

In a rematch, where Merab is the challenger, he has no burden to keep the fight entertaining. Only thing he needs to focus on is winning. He will force wrestling much more and much earlier. He didn’t really commit to his takedowns last fight, but the few times he did it looked easy.
We will probably see a boring, control based decision, but it is what it is with the current rules.

lol the idea that the fight was entertaining because Merab wanted it to be I think is evidently 100% false.

the idea that Merab was compromised because of 4 fight camps in 1 year is 100% valid.

 

[Conan the K-9]

lol the idea that the fight was entertaining because Merab wanted it to be I think is evidently 100% false.

the idea that Merab was compromised because of 4 fight camps in 1 year is 100% valid.

I think they both might be true. Merab fought differently compared to what he usually does. I don’t want to take anything away from Yan, he looked great. I don’t think anyone else can beat this version of Yan, than maybe Merab who is on a wall and stall mission.