LOS ANGELES — When Bruce Buffer made the dramatic announcement following his UFC 306 main event against Sean O’Malley, Merab Dvalishvili Dvalishvili was talking to himself, pointing to his heart, while the light of the Georgian Papakha flashed above his head and remained calm. Even as Buffer read his name, declaring him “annnddd… the new guy!” Dvalishvili remained calm.
The moment UFC President Dana White wrapped the bantamweight belt around his waist, Dvalishvili lost it, grabbed Papakha, and threw himself He had been imagining this moment for more than a decade after moving to the United States from Georgia at age 21 to pursue professional boxing. , fell to his knees and cried loudly.
“That was crazy. I couldn’t even believe it,” Dvalishvili says now. “When I came back to my country, I was shocked again how happy people were to see me become champion. For a small country like Georgia, it’s a big thing. … It’s important to me. It’s important to me. It’s a very, very big thing for me.”
Unfortunately, it was a short honeymoon. Just two months after he won the belt, and while he was in Las Vegas helping his close friend and teammate Aljamain Sterling prepare for a fight, the UFC asked Dvalishvili if he would be willing to fight six weeks later defended the title for the first time in mid-January.
That’s not the timeline the 34-year-old wanted. When he won the belt, he envisioned himself back in Georgia, helping Sterling prepare, enjoying the break, and then resuming his first title defense in March. He also suffered an injury from the O’Malley fight, which hampered his training. And, psychologically speaking, he wasn’t planning on switching back to competitive mode so quickly.
“I want to enjoy it,” said Dvalishvili, who must win ten consecutive matches to secure the title. “But once I heard the UFC needed me, I stepped up.”
And he certainly didn’t get a layup in his first defense: undefeated 29-year-old Umar Nurmagomedov. Just four months after going five rounds with O’Malley, Dvalishvili takes on the most dangerous prospect in his division, who was raised in Russia’s No. 1 freestyle wrestling family.
“For Omar, I would like a longer training camp to prepare. Because he is an all-around fighter – boxing, wrestling,” Dvalishvili said. “But once I signed the contract, I was in.”
Umar is the cousin of legendary UFC lightweight champion Khabib and the older brother of current Bellator/PFL middleweight champion Usman. Their combined professional record is 65-0. Omar has won several bantamweight titles in regional Russian promotions, fighting in converted gyms and hockey rinks, but remains the only Nurmagomedov yet to win a title with a major MMA company .
On Saturday, he plans to change that. Even though Nurmagomedov is the least tested of the three at the top level, his ratings for this fight range from -300 to -350. It’s a remarkable statement and illustrates how highly regarded his game is.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to destroy him,” Nurmagomedov said. “Whether it’s punching him, kicking him, knocking him down, grappling him, strangling him, I’m going to take his belt.”
Nurmagomedov is a particularly difficult matchup for Dvalishvili — and not just because of his obvious wrestling pedigree. He has superb technique, exquisite footwork, and an amazing 3.0 handicap, even better than Dvalishvili and second only to O’Malley among active bantamweights. In four of his six UFC fights, he absorbed seven or fewer significant blows. In three of those six games, he scored 68 points or more.
Cory Sandhagen is the only fighter to land more than 13 major blows on him and is as successful as anyone who stops him from knocking out Nurmagomedov Cory Sandhagen defended eight of 13 at-bats. As a technical fighter, Sandhagen provides us with the best blueprint we’ve ever seen on how to deal with Nurmagomedov’s all-around style. And he was still completely defeated.
“As a boxer, I think Merab’s wrestling attack is better than Corey Sandhagen. But offensively, I think Corey is one of the best,” Nurmagomedo Husband said. “I think [Sandhagen] One of the best fighters in my division. I don’t think anyone is going to beat him. Even Sean O’Malley. If you put O’Malley and Corey together, Corey would crush him. Corey is a very strong fighter. “
The key to Nurmagomedov’s camp’s success is how good its game plan is. It’s easy to simply say that fighters want to execute the same top-heavy, pressure-wrestling tactics in all their fights. But Islam Makhachev refutes this every time. The same goes for Nurmagomedov.
If anything, Nurmagomedov has shown an unusual comfort in controlling his opponents from a distance, using punishing jabs to cover up long-range kicks, and A series of takedowns from orthodox and southpaw stances. This makes his work very challenging to read. The adversary does not know what attacks will be launched from either stance because all attacks originate from both stances.
You could see this against Sandhagen, who looked frustrated in the early rounds of the game as he struggled to get into striking range. In the rare occasion of Sandhagen, Nurmagomedov opted for a determined single and double leg, quickly taking the fight to his world.
Of course, Dvalishvili is more attuned to this world than Sandhagen, and may even be quick to join the fight to try to move him there. Have we seen Nurmagomedov positioned as a fighter who wants to defend takedowns and stay consistent? That may be the case on Saturday. Either way, who gets the better of the wrestling match early on might be all we need to see to predict who will win this fight without any luck.
“I don’t care about his wrestling skills and I don’t care about his condition. Because I know I’m ready. I’m not afraid of his wrestling skills,” Nurmagomedov said. “For someone who doesn’t understand the mechanics of wrestling and the game of wrestling, he’s got good wrestling.”
Whether or not that’s true, Dvalishvili is still the best fighter Nurmagomedov has faced in his career, and by a considerable margin. Nurmagomedov’s performance in six UFC fights is impressive, but the strength of his schedule cannot be ignored. We probably can’t imagine Nurmagomedov underperforming in any aspect of his game because we haven’t seen every aspect of his game truly tested. Dvalishvili and his almighty engine can do just that.
Dvalishvili’s game is all gas, no brakes. Over the course of his UFC career, he’s averaged over four major strikes per minute and six knockouts every 15 minutes. He’s constantly on the move during the fight, constantly bouncing from a distance, moving laterally to change angles, rushing in and out of range with feints and takedown attempts, attacking his opponents from all directions.
How effectively Dvalishvili utilizes his relentless pace will be key to his success. Or maybe a better way to describe it is how effectively Nurmagomedov fends off it. There is no doubt that Dvalishvili has the ability to apply pressure for 25 minutes. This has been proven repeatedly. The depth of Nurmagomedov’s tank does not.
It’s one thing to go five rounds with Sandhagen, it’s another thing to go five rounds with Dvalishvili. Petr Yan’s cardiorespiratory fitness is not bad. But when Yan came up against Dvalishvili, who had 49 knockdowns in the fight, he simply couldn’t keep up and found himself on the wrong side of three 50-45 scorecards. One end.
Maybe you missed it – 49 knockout attempts! Nearly 10 per round. Have you ever seen anything like this? If you saw that figure and nothing else, you’d think Dvalishvili didn’t spend any time trying to land on his feet. You would be wrong. He struck out 338 times, more than twice as many as Yan. 312 of them came from distant places. These are not close range strikes in a dogfight or on the ground. Dvalishvili kept attacking for 25 minutes, suppressing Yan’s ability to initiate offense.
Low-key, this may be the greatest feat of endurance in MMA history. On a low note, Dvalishvili may have had the best result in the sport. His last four opponents – Jose Aldo, Yan, Henry Cejudo and O’Malley – were all UFC champions. Dvalishvili made unanimous decisions on each of them.
“Every time you fight a new opponent, there are new challenges. After (the Nurmagomedov fight), I’m sure there will be new ones,” Dvalishvili said. “The next fight is always the biggest. I beat a lot of good guys, but no one remembers it. You know, they say MMA fans have short memories. I think they do.”
Add to that the stark fact that Dvalishvili has been declining in the build-up to this fight. He’s never hidden the fact that he didn’t want Nurmagomedov to be his first defense — and doesn’t want to now. He has repeatedly stated that he believes Nurmagomedov needs to chart a harder path up the division ladder before earning a title shot, and he envisions a fight with a more manageable opponent with longer training Runway, like how O’Malley’s first defense went seven months later, he defeated Marlon Vera in the middle of the game to win the championship.
Now, as a neutral observer, it’s hard to argue with the UFC for pitting a champion against the next best in his division. Without another obvious opponent, Dvalishvili has recent wins over O’Malley and Yan, while Sandhagen, Deveson Figueiredo and Song Yadong are fresh off losses.
Nurmagomedov is also the most famous of the bunch – the fact that his cousin is the one who built it is neither here nor there. The UFC is in the business of putting on the biggest fights possible, and that’s exactly what they did.
Still, there’s a stark difference between the grace O’Malley achieved in becoming champion and the way Dvalishvili handled it, not to mention the vastly different competitive paths the two had to take to win the title. You have feelings for Dvalishvili. Especially when he exposed his trump card in the preparation stage.
But it won’t be easy. For Dvalishvili, there was nothing. At the age of 21, he left his hometown to pursue his dream in a foreign country. He defied all odds just to make it to the UFC and then went on a long road in one of the deepest and most competitive divisions until he could no longer be denied a title shot. Then he grabbed that belt, and two months later, he signed up for a quick turnaround against the most dangerous guy in the division. At this point, what are the difficulties that still need to be overcome?
“I used to work in construction. That’s why I have different strengths and a different mentality,” Dvalishvili said. “I worked for eight hours straight. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. Now, those 25 minutes are nothing to me. Omar will feel that. Nothing like what I do in architecture It’s been an extra workout for me compared to my job and I’m grateful for everything I’ve done in my life.”
