Adrian
Yanez soon gets another chance to do justice to the cloth from
which he was cut.
The 29-year-old Texan will attempt to reassert himself in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division when he
takes on
Jonathan
Martinez in a featured
UFC Fight Night 230 attraction this Saturday at the UFC Apex in
Las Vegas. Yanez enters the Octagon with wins in nine of his past
10 outings but finds himself on the rebound following his first
stoppage loss as a pro. One of the promotion’s most consistent
offensive performers, he has been awarded five post-fight bonus
performances in less than three years on the UFC roster.
As Yanez moves ever closer to his forthcoming battle with Martinez
at 135 pounds, a look at few of the rivalries that have helped
shape his career to this point:
A ruthless clinch game, timely takedowns and a sharp jab carried
the
Fortis
MMA export to a split decision—49-46, 47-48, 48-47—over Yanez,
as he laid claim to the vacant
Legacy Fighting Alliance bantamweight championship in the LFA
55 main event on Nov. 30, 2018 at The Bomb Factory in Dallas. Johns
stayed true to his game plan for 25 minutes. He crowded the skilled
Yanez in close quarters, completed takedowns in the second and
third rounds, kept his head moving in standup exchanges and
unleashed repeated jabs that eventually bloodied the Saul Soliz
protégé’s nose. Even so, it was a struggle. Yanez kept him guessing
with stance switches and feints, leaned into his counters and
switched gears late in the bout. He did his best work in Round 5,
where he threatened Johns with a tight guillotine choke, zeroed in
on the body with punches and knees, scored with an educated jab of
his own and won a majority of the scrambles. Yanez’s efforts went
for naught.
Yanez needed less than a minute to put away the Dragon House MMA
rep with first-round punches, as he nailed down a UFC contract
during Week 2 of
Dana White’s Contender Series on Aug. 11, 2020 at the UFC Apex
in Las Vegas. Huang succumbed to blows 39 seconds into Round 1, the
victim of what was at the time the fifth-fastest finish in the
history of the series. Yanez barely broke a sweat. The
Bellator
MMA alum buckled Huang’s knees with a clean left hook, reset
and then connected with a vicious multi-punch combination that was
punctuated with another left hook and a chopping right hand. A
dazed and confused Huang stumbled backward, prompting referee Jason
Herzog to intervene on his behalf.
Superior efficiency allowed Yanez to maintain his upward trajectory
at 135 pounds when he eked out a split decision over “The Ultimate
Fighter” Season 18 finalist in a UFC Fight Night 198 bantamweight
showcase on Nov. 20, 2021 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Judges
Junichiro Kamijo and
Eric Colon
scored it 29-28 for Yanez, while judge Tony Weeks raised more than
a few eyebrows with a 30-27 nod to Grant. Yanez took some time to
get going. Grant zeroed in on him with an active kicking game and
did everything he could to lure him into an ugly firefight. Yanez
refused to bite and instead leaned on clean jab-cross combinations
and occasional kicks of his own. The evidence of his work was
painted on Grant’s face, blood streaming from a cut on the bridge
of his nose. Yanez outstruck the respected Englishman by narrow
margins in the second and third rounds, doing just enough to get by
on the scorecards.
The New England Cartel cornerstone cut down Yanez with punches in
the first round of their UFC 287 bantamweight feature on April 8,
2023 at the Kaseya Center in Miami. Font drew the curtain 2:57 into
Round 1, denying the burgeoning Metro Fight Club star entry to the
bantamweight elite. Yanez marked up the former
CES MMA champion with searing counter right hands and kept him
guessing with a few low kicks. However, his chin could not
withstand the heat that was sent back his way. Font connected with
a surgical one-two, gave chase with punches and floored the Texan
with a sweeping right hook. Yanez hit the canvas, where he was met
with a hailstorm of hammerfists that necessitated the stoppage.