Adrian Yanez sees his win over Cody Garbrandt at UFC 329 as legit.
Yanez (18-6-1 MMA, 7-3-1 UFC) finished Garbrandt (15-8 MMA, 10-8 UFC) by Round 1 TKO in this past Saturday’s prelims at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
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Although Garbrandt has now lost three of his past four fights, Yanez says it’s unfair to diminish his win over the former UFC bantamweight champion.
“I don’t get it, but I understand,” Yanez told MMA Junkie. “I can kind of see and understand where people are getting that from, but like, come on, dude. He hasn’t gotten knocked out in a while and it’s been a while, and he’s only lost to very, very good fighters. He hasn’t lost to any bums or anything like that. Raoni Barcelos, Deiveson Figueiredo, Kai Kara-France, all those guys, they’re legit. Pedro Munoz was in the top 15 for such a long time.
“So, this whole narrative of like, ‘Oh man, he’s washed’ … No, he’s only lost to the best guys, and then you give him somebody like (Xiao) Long, and he goes out there and he wins. I know he’s kind of had it a little bit up and down after the belt, but it’s not like a terrible up and down, where he’s just getting beat by people who are just getting into the UFC. If that was the case, you can probably be like, ‘He is a little bit older, he’s getting a little bit more washed.’ So I don’t know. Fans are fickle, and as soon as you lose to one good guy, they’re like, ‘Oh, he’s terrible. He’s sh*t.’ I hate those type of narratives.”
Garbrandt removed his gloves in the octagon, but the statement he posted after signaled that he’s not done fighting.
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“I didn’t really think about it too much in my head,” Yanez said of Garbrandt potentially retiring. “I remember seeing the gloves come off, and I was like, maybe, I don’t know. In my head, I was also, too like, ‘Man, I hope not.’ But again, there were just so many mixed emotions. I just got off the win and I’m seeing him take his gloves off, and then I go to the back and it really didn’t hit me until like they asked the question. I was like, man. ‘He had his gloves off, do you think he retired?’
“I was like, man, like, I don’t know how I feel about that. That’s weird. Like being somebody’s last fight would be a little bit weird, especially someone like Cody Garbrandt. The time that he goes out, he deserves the video package and everything because he was that guy who came in guns blazing, was knocking everybody out to the title, goes out there, has a phenomenal performance. So to me, I’m just like, yeah, he deserves the shine as soon as he decides to call it a career.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Adrian Yanez unhappy with fickle fans saying he beat a ‘washed’ Garbrandt
