Damning New Footage Shows Petr Yan's Corner Telling Him To Throw Illegal Knee

And to be fair to the Russian, he's handled the demoralising defeat with such grace after coming out and holding his hands up to apologise.

He even reached out to Aljamain Sterling during his post-fight press conference to make sure the newly-crowned 135-pound champion was alright after copping a highly-illegal knee to the temple.

But now that the dust has settled (well, sort of), it seems some previously-unseen footage has been released from the fight - and it doesn't bode well for Yan's team.

Damning video has surfaced showing one of Yan's coaches seemingly instructed him to knee his grounded opponent.

UFC 259 broadcaster ESPN posted the corner cam clip on their social channels and, unsurprisingly, it instantly blew up online.

In the footage, you can clearly hear one of Yan's masked cornermen shouting: "Just punches, just punches."

While another chimes in, yelling: "Yes, yes."

And even when Yan lands the final blow, one of them appears to cheer.

After reviewing the new footage, former dual-division champion and UFC commentator Daniel Cormier went some way to explaining what actually happened.

"Well guys, you can hear someone in the corner saying 'just punch'," DC said.

"But then you can someone else in that corner says 'yes' when he says 'kick'. It's in Russian, Khabib (Nurmagomedov) heard it and told us over here because we couldn't understand the language.

"But someone in that corner yelled 'yes, kick' and then Petr Yan lands an illegal knee that ultimately costs him the UFC championship."

In the heat of battle and with UFC gold on the line, it's easy to see why Yan had a rush of blood to the head.

But DC's right, it did cost him big time with very baffled and emotional Sterling handed the bantamweight strap.

"To be honest, I didn't really understand what they were telling me," Yan told reporters during the UFC 259 post-fight press conference.

"I was just focused on the hand, and throwing the knee when he will be up."

UFC president Dana White has already hinted that both men want the immediate rematch - and he seems more than happy to make it happen.

Sterling will undoubtedly want to prove himself as a worthy champion.

As for Yan, he'll want to go out there and show MMA fans that he can win legally.

And he might want to think about who he has in his corner this time too.