LOS ANGELES — As Bruce Buffer dramatically announced the results following his UFC 306 main event with Sean O’Malley, Merab Dvalishvili, pointing at his heart and talking to himself as a Georgian papakha shimmered atop his head, kept it together. Even as Buffer read his name, proclaiming him “annnddd... new!” Dvalishvili remained composed.
It was the moment UFC President Dana White wrapped the bantamweight belt around his waist, a moment he’d been visualizing for over a decade after moving from Georgia to the United States at 21 to pursue professional fighting, that Dvalishvili lost it, grabbing the papakha, dropping to his knees and wailing.
“That was crazy. I couldn’t even believe it,” Dvalishvili says now. “And when I went back to my country, I was shocked again by how people were so happy to see me as a champion. It’s a big deal for a small country like Georgia. … This is what’s important for me. This is a big, big thing for me.”
It was, unfortunately, a brief honeymoon. Only two months after he won the belt, while in Las Vegas helping his close friend and teammate Aljamain Sterling prepare for a fight, the UFC asked Dvalishvili if he would make his first title defence only six weeks later in mid-January.
That isn’t the timeframe the 34-year-old had in mind. When he won the belt, he imagined himself returning to Georgia, helping Sterling prepare, enjoying the holidays, and then building back up to his first defence in March. He was also still carrying an unspecified injury from the O’Malley fight that was impeding his training. And, mentally, he wasn’t intending to flip the switch back to competitive mode so quickly.
“I wanted to enjoy it,” says Dvalishvili, who had to string together 10 straight victories before getting his title shot. “But once I hear UFC need me, I step up.”
And he certainly isn’t getting a layup in his first defence: Undefeated 29-year-old Umar Nurmagomedov. Just four months after going five rounds with O’Malley, Dvalishvili’s being fed his division’s most dangerous prospect, one raised in Russia’s first family of freestyle wrestling.
“For Umar, I wanted a longer training camp to prepare. Because he's a well-rounded fighter — striking, wrestling,” Dvalishvili says. “But once I signed the contract, I'm in.”
Umar is the younger cousin of Khabib, the legendary UFC lightweight champion, and the older brother of Usman, currently Bellator / PFL’s middleweight champion. Together, they are a combined 65-0 in professional fights. Umar’s won a couple bantamweight titles in Russian regional promotions, fighting at modified gymnasiums and hockey arenas, but remains the lone Nurmagomedov yet to hold a title in a major MMA company.
Saturday, he intends to change that. And despite being the least tested of the three against top-level competition, Nurmagomedov is approaching this fight ranging from a -300 to a -350 favourite. It’s a remarkable statement about how highly regarded his game is.
“I will do everything to destroy him,” Nurmagomedov says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s going to be punching, take him down, grappling, choke him — I will take his belt”
Nurmagomedov is a particularly difficult matchup for Dvalishvili — and not only due to his obvious wrestling pedigree. He’s technical and refined on the feet, carrying a 3.0 striking differential that’s even better than Dvalishvili’s and second to only O’Malley among active bantamweights. In four of his six UFC fights he’s absorbed seven significant strikes or fewer. And in three of those six, he’s landed 68 or more.
Cory Sandhagen’s the only fighter to land over 13 significant strikes on him and had as much success as anyone stopping his takedowns, defending eight of the 13 Nurmagomedov shot for. As technical a fighter as you’ll find, Sandhagen provided the best blueprint we’ve seen for how to handle Nurmagomedov’s well-rounded style. And he was still defeated thoroughly.
“As a fighter, I think Merab has better wrestling attacks than Cory Sandhagen. But in striking, I think Cory is one of the best,” Nurmagomedov says. “I think [Sandhagen] is one of the best fighters in my division. I think nobody will beat him. Even Sean O’Malley. If you put O’Malley versus Cory, Cory’s going to smash him. Cory’s a very tough fighter.”
The critical component of the Nurmagomedov camp’s success is how well it gameplans. It’s easy to be reductive and say its fighters look to execute the same top-heavy, pressure-wrestling tactics across all fights. But Islam Makhachev disproves that each time out. Nurmagomedov does, too.
If anything, Nurmagomedov has demonstrated an uncommon comfort controlling opponents from distance, using a punishing jab to disguise a range-kicking game and suite of takedowns out of both orthodox and southpaw stances. That makes him exceptionally challenging to read. Opponents don’t know which attacks will be coming their way from either stance because all attacks come their way from both.
You could see it against Sandhagen, who appeared frustrated with his difficulty getting into striking range during the early rounds of their fight. And on the rare occasions Sandhagen did, Nurmagomedov timed staunch single- and double-legs to quickly take the fight into his world.
Of course, Dvalishvili’s more comfortable in that world than Sandhagen and may even come into the fight quickly trying to move it there. Have we ever seen a Nurmagomedov positioned as the fighter who wants to defend takedowns and keep things standing? That could be the case Saturday. Either way, who gets the better of the wrestling exchanges early may be all we need to see to foresee who will take this fight without a lucky shot.
“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 scared of his wrestling skills,” Nurmagomedov says. “He just has good wrestling for guys who don’t understand wrestling skills and wrestling games.”
Whether that’s true or not, Dvalishviliis still best fighter Nurmagomedov has faced in his career by a considerable margin. For as impressive as his six-fight UFC run has been to this point, Nurmagomedov’s strength of schedule is hard to ignore. It’s possible we can’t conceive of Nurmagomedov struggling in any facet of the game because we’ve yet to see every facet of his game truly tested. Dvalishvili and his all-time motor can do that.
Dvalishvili’s game is all gas, no brakes. He’s averaged more than four significant strikes landed per minute over his UFC career and a bonkers six takedowns per 15 minutes. He fights in perpetual motion, constantly bouncing around at distance, moving laterally to change angles, dashing in and out of range with feints and takedown attempts, throwing offence at opponents from all directions.
How effectively Dvalishvili can weaponize his relentless pace will be elemental to his success. Or perhaps a better way of framing it is how effectively Nurmagomedov can withstand it. There’s no questioning Dvalishvili’s ability to press for 25 minutes. That’s been demonstrated repeatedly. What hasn’t is the depth of Nurmagomedov’s gas tank.
Going five rounds with Sandhagen is one thing — doing it with Dvalishvili is another. It’s not like Petr Yan has bad cardio. But when Yan encountered Dvalishvili, who shot for 49 takedowns in their fight, he simply couldn’t keep up and found himself on the wrong end of three 50-45 scorecards.
Maybe you missed that — 49 takedown attempts! Nearly 10 per round. Have you ever seen such a thing? If you saw that figure and nothing else you’d presume Dvalishvili didn’t spend any time trying to land on the feet. And you’d be wrong. He threw 338 significant strikes — over twice as many as Yan. And 312 of them were from distance. These weren’t close-range strikes in the clinch or on the ground. Dvalishvili simply spammed offence for 25 straight minutes, suffocating Yan’s ability to initiate any offence of his own.
Low key, it may be the greatest endurance feat in MMA history. And lower key, Dvalishvili may be on the sport’s best run of victories. His last four opponents — Jose Aldo, Yan, Henry Cejudo, and O’Malley — have all held UFC titles. And Dvalishvili came away with unanimous decisions over each of them.
“Every time you fight a new opponent, there is a new challenge. After (the Nurmagomedov fight) I'm sure there will be somebody new,” Dvalishvili says. “The next fight always will be the biggest. I beat so many good guys but nobody remembers anymore. You know, they say MMA fans have short memories. And I think they do.”
Add that to the naked truths Dvalishvili’s been dropping in the buildup to this fight. At no point has he concealed the fact he didn’t want Nurmagomedov for his first defence — and didn’t want it now. He’s repeatedly said he felt Nurmagomedov needed to chart a tougher course up the divisional ladder before earning his title shot, and that he envisioned a fight opposite a more manageable opponent with a longer runway to train, much like how O’Malley’s first defence came seven months after he won the title against the game-but-outmatched Marlon Vera.
Now, as a neutral observer, it’s difficult to argue with UFC making a champion fight his division’s next-best guy. And there wasn’t another obvious opponent with Dvalishvili having recent wins over O’Malley and Yan, while Sandhagen, Deiveson Figueiredo, and Song Yadong are coming off losses.
Nurmagomedov is also the biggest name of the bunch — the fact his cousin was the one to build it is neither here nor there. UFC is in the business of billing the biggest fights possible and that’s what they’ve done.
Still, there is a remarkable discrepancy between the grace O’Malley was afforded upon becoming champion and the way Dvalishvili is being handled, to say nothing of the disparate competitive roads the two had to travel to earn their title shots. You feel for Dvalishvili. Especially when he’s laying his cards so bare in the leadup.
But it’s not supposed to be easy. And nothing for Dvalishvili has. He left home at 21 to pursue his passion in a foreign land. He beat the odds merely reaching the UFC, then took the long road up one of its deepest, most competitive divisions until he could no longer be denied a title shot. Then he snatched that belt and, two months later, signed up to fight the most dangerous dude in the division on a quick turnaround. At this point, what’s one more challenge overcome the hard way?
“I used to work in construction. That's why I have different power and a different mindset,” Dvalishvili says. “I was working eight hours straight. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Now, this 25 minutes is nothing for me. And Umar will feel that. This is an extra workout for me compared to what I was doing in construction. That’s helped my fighting style. I'm grateful for what I've done in my life. And you guys will all see.”
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