Merab Dvalishvili is no stranger to firing back at opponents who decide to talk trash to him but the reigning UFC bantamweight champion prefers to avoid all that drama unless there’s really some kind of bad blood between them.
Ahead of his rematch against Petr Yan in the UFC 323 main event, Dvalishvili has shown nothing but respect towards his latest challenger but that’s a far cry from their first encounter. Dvalishvili had real issues with Yan in the past, especially after the Russian got involved
in another heated rivalry with his friend and teammate Aljamain Sterling.
This time around, Yan has gone as far as praising Dvalishvili as the greatest bantamweight of all time and saying he would deserve an immediate rematch against anybody who actually beats him. It’s a far cry from the first fight where Yan violently shoved Dvalishvili on stage at the official weigh-ins that forced UFC officials to intervene to keep them separated.
“That time it was a personal fight for me. Now, it’s more competition,” Dvalishvili said during UFC 323 media day. “Because, we fought once already and I beat him. Now every time he’s fighting, I was cheering for him. I looked at his Instagram, he’s a great father. As a fighter, he was always a good fighter.
“My only problem with him, he was a bully. He was talking trash about me, about [Aljamain Sterling], our team and he was just giving us respect. That was the problem. Now it’s all good. It doesn’t matter what, I will shake his hand and wish him the best in his life.”
Without ever saying his name, Dvailishvili also referenced his history with Umar Nurmagomedov after they engaged in an ugly back and forth before and after their fight back in January.
That was another situation that spiraled out of control when it came to the trash talk shared between the fighters but Dvalishvili doesn’t believe it was ever genuine, which bothered him even more.
“I never liked this [buildup] to make it dramatic or something,” Dvalishvili said. “It’s a fight. We are professional fighters and people will watch anyways. It was one guy, the spoiled guy, who called me after our fight and he said ‘oh Merab, don’t post a picture of me, we just built the fight.’ I’m like why did you do this? You don’t need to do this.
“I don’t like this. MMA fans will watch our fights anyways. If it’s not organic, why do we have to disrespect each other? I never liked this. Whatever it was, it was real. I’m a real guy. Maybe I joke or whatever — a joke is a joke — but I don’t like to talk trash for no reason. I don’t like somebody to disrespect me for no reason.”
Of course, Dvalishvili might have to deal with Nurmagomedov again, especially if he’s able to defeat Deiveson Figueiredo in his next fight scheduled for UFC 324 in January.
That doesn’t seem to bother the UFC bantamweight champion because he’s happy to fight whoever the promotion throws at him. He’s already geared up for two rematches in 2025 with Yan and Sean O’Malley so perhaps Nurmagomedov becomes his third next year.
“Whoever the UFC puts in front of me, I will fight,” Dvalishvili said. “Of course, I would like to fight guys that are coming from a long winning streak and who look very good and who makes me excited, who makes me work hard. It makes me motivated.
“For now, Petr Yan makes me motivated. He beat Deiveson Figueiredo, he beat Song Yadong and he Marcus McGhee in a very dominant way. So now he’s the guy.”
