UFC 323 was meant to be Merab Dvalishvili‘s finest moment, the night he became the first UFC champion to defend a title four times in a single calendar year. Instead, it finished with Joe Rogan sitting cageside, shaking his head in bewilderment as Petr Yan turned their rematch into something far more spectacular than anyone had anticipated. Fans were not prepared for what happened inside the cage, despite expectations of a pace war and concerns about Yan’s form following recent losses.

What made the night stranger was how quickly the tone changed. After a few exchanges, something seemed different. Yan, who came in bigger, also looked much calmer and sharper, while ‘The Machine,’ usually the storm, kept running into a wall he couldn’t dent. By the end of it, it was evident that ‘No Mercy’ wasn’t just reclaiming his title. It was a psychological reversal of their entire rivalry, and it began long before the bell ever rang.

Joe Rogan reveals Petr Yan’s psychological change in this fight

On the Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan and UFC middleweight Brendan Allen attempted to explain how a fighter famed for bottomless cardio and crushing pressure was outperformed over five rounds. And that is when the JRE host pointed to something subtle: Petr Yan‘s mental and physical reset.

He reminded listeners that in their first fight, Yan wasn’t just having an off night. “Apparently, he had an f—– up right hand,” Rogan stated. “I re-watched the fight… he’s barely using it.” If you enter a battle with one hand, Joe Rogan argued, everything becomes a calculation rather than an instinct. You throw less. You grapple less. You hesitate, and that delay is death against someone like Dvalishvili.

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But in this rematch, that hesitation was gone. Even Allen chimed in, stating that he didn’t believe Yan could keep up that pace for five rounds, but by round three, it was clear that ‘No Mercy’ wasn’t fading. Merab Dvalishvili was. Rogan went even farther, marveling at how much training it must have taken to prepare someone who attempted 49 takedowns in their first fight.

“His training camp must’ve been hell,” Joe Rogan said—not as a joke, but as the only reasonable explanation for how Petr Yan remained calm while stuffing takedown after takedown and ripping the Georgian up with body blows that drew audible screams from the champion. That psychological shift—a healthy warrior now believing he could break the machine—was evident in every exchange.

Merab Dvalishvili shot. ‘No mercy’ answered. Dvalishvili pulled the guillotine. Yan escaped. The Georgian swung. Yan slammed him. In round five, Rogan put it up perfectly: “He solved the puzzle.” And now that the belt is back around Petr Yan’s waist, one truth is impossible to deny: it isn’t always the pace, wrestling, or damage that decides a match. Sometimes it is the mind. And while Yan walked in with an advantage, the same cannot be said about ‘The Machine.’

Rogan brings Dvalishvili’s weight cut into question

It is worth noting that Joe Rogan didn’t wait for the podcast to raise concerns; he’d already addressed it during the UFC 323 broadcast. Even before Petr Yan’s hand was raised, he noted that Merab Dvalishvili looked exhausted, saying that the champion’s brutal self-managed weight cut “was absolutely crazy” and had most likely affected him long before the fight began. He said, “I think a giant factor was the weight cut for Merab is absolutely brutal.” 

Jon Anik presented it as the cost of chasing four title defenses in one year, but the JRE host shifted the subject to a more serious issue: Dvalishvili’s refusal to follow modern nutrition protocols. As Rogan reminded viewers, ‘The Machine’ simply stops eating on Tuesday and stops drinking in the middle of the week. “You’ve heard what he’s said: ‘I don’t trust nutritionists, I do it my way,’” the JRE host said. “You know what his way is? He stops eating on Tuesday. That’s so crazy.”

Daniel Cormier confirmed this during fight week, adding that Merab Dvalishvili practically starves himself from Wednesday to Friday, a system that “beats him up more than the fights do.” And while Dvalishvili’s pace held, consequences were evident elsewhere: longer recoveries, less pop, and fewer explosive entries.

Maybe nobody was beating the Yan who walked into the T-Mobile Arena that night, as he was too smart and too prepared. But Joe Rogan’s point came earlier and louder than everything that followed: Dvalishvili wasn’t just outworked. He came in drained, and at this point, that’s enough to change everything.