As one of the three UFC 259 championship matches, the competition between Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling to decide the Bantamweight Royal throne received a lot of attention from the audience. There have been many predictable scenarios, but perhaps the match ending with a blow on the law is unimaginable.
The event took place in the fourth half of the battle.
After 3 struggling rounds, Petr Yan was the one who completely dominated on the transcript when the largest weapon of Aljamain Sterling, the Takedown phase, did not really create any dangerous situations. Despite being more tired and slower, Sterling continuously implemented the Takedown efforts in the fourth half, leading to an unfortunate situation: While Sterling knelt on the floor, with Yan's hand on his head, he ate a whole pillow straight into the temple from Petr Yan.
Under UFC's law, it was attacked in the opponent's head when they were in a kneeling position with 4 ground touching points. Previously, Petr Yan also hurriedly closed the border of violating the law by launching axe kicks while Sterling tried to take Takedown in the previous half.
Petr Yan's pillow made Sterling dizzy, unable to continue playing. Referee Mark Smith decided to end the battle of belt with the result of Petr Yan lost due to deliberately making a mistake.
Not to say that Petr Yan was extremely disappointed when he lost the championship because of a blow on the knee. The person who was tried to win, Aljamain Sterling, was not happy. At the end of the brief speech after the reunion match with Petr Yan, Sterling even let go of the championship belt on the stage without cherishing.
“This is not the way I want to win,” Aljamain Sterling said while leaving the octagon cage.