Jimmie Rivera
Wants to fight:[autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag]
The callout: “Of course he’s beatable. I beat him for almost 14 minutes in the fight we had. He won (the fight) because he hit me with two shots. A shot in the first and a shot in the second where I dropped and got back up. It wasn’t like a finish shot, but it was a shot I didn’t see and it’s the shots that you don’t see are the worst shots that you take. Nothing against Petr Yan, he’s a tough S.O.B., but I would love to get that fight back.”
The reality: [autotag]Jimmie Rivera[/autotag] knows he won’t be getting a title shot next, but that didn’t stop him stating his intention to get into a position to face Petr Yan for a second time.
Rivera says he gave Yan his hardest test in the octagon to date, and he might just be right. The key moments in their fight went Yan’s way, but overall the action was very competitive through the three rounds.
He’s going to have to win at least a couple of fights against the division’s top contenders to push himself to the front of the queue, and a matchup against someone like Cory Sandhagen may offer a viable opportunity for him to propel himself into the Top 5. If he wins that fight impressively enough, he could potentially find himself one big win away from a second meeting with Yan.
He’s got some legwork to do first, but Rivera’s first meeting with “No Mercy” will give him confidence that, with the appropriate tweaks to his game, he could give the current champion all he can handle in a rematch.
[opinary poll=”petr-yan-vs-jimmie-rivera-ii_mmajunkie-Aii4Vt” customer=”mmajunkie”]
Next up: Featherweight contender stakes his claim