At the end of Petr Yan and Deiveson Figueiredo’s first staredown ahead of their UFC Macau main event this Saturday, Yan whispered something in Figueiredo’s ear that lip readers have been trying to figure out.

“I just told him it’s it’s going to be a very hard and tough night for him that he never faced before,” Yan told MMA Fighting.

“I’m not bluffing. I’m not playing any mind games. I just honestly believe that he never faced anything like he’s going to face this Saturday night. [He’s] never had any challenges as I had [in our careers].”

Yan makes his second appearance of 2024 after defeating Song Yadong at UFC 299 in March. The former bantamweight champion revealed he suffered a torn ACL and meniscus in the first round of the bout, but also competed with an injury to his other leg that he dealt with during the final month of preparation. Yan has fully recovered and feels great heading into an exciting main event matchup against another former world champ.

Figueiredo has looked fantastic since moving up from 125 pounds. The multi-time flyweight champ has picked up dominant wins over Rob Font and Marlon Vera, along with a stoppage of Cody Garbrandt at UFC 300 in his new bantamweight journey.

In Yan’s eyes, Figueredo looked great in the fights, but he was supposed to.

“I mean, if he moved up, it probably means he had problems making weight at flyweight,” Yan said. “So it means he cut a lot of weight, so he’s pretty heavy anyway.

“And talking about his opposition like Rob Font, Cody Garbrandt, Marlon Vera, I believe they’re not that high-level. They’re mid-level, average fighters, and h’se never faced someone as high-level as me.”

There’s been a lot of chatter about the potential stakes in the bantamweight five-rounder in the UFC’s return to Macau. New champion Merab Dvalishvili has said that if he gets the victory on Saturday, Figueiredo should be his opponent in his first title defense — a sentiment Figueiredo agrees with as he feels a victory would leapfrog him over Umar Nurmagomedov.

But what if Yan plays spoiler and gets his hand raised?

“You know, as Merab been saying himself, Figueiredo is a top, most worthy contender right now, so if I beat him, I don’t know what Merab’s going to say,” Yan explained. “But probably, he’s going want to rematch Sean O’Malley… but as you all know what happened when I fought Sean, I believe I was robbed and I believe I beat Sean very decisively. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know that I’m not looking [beyond] Figueredo. I’m just very confident that I’m gonna break him and I’m going to take this No. 1 contender spot.

“So only a bad soldier doesn’t want to be a general. In my head, I visualize how I win, how my hand get raised, and then I call out Merab.”