Umar Nurmagomedov is getting sick of having to talk about Merab Dvalishvili and accusations of disrespect.
Nurmagomedov is currently in Shanghai where he’ll fight Song Yadong on Saturday. A win would put him on a three fight win streak, not bad when you’re competing at the top of the always tough UFC bantamweight division. It’d be a nine fight winning streak in the UFC, though, if he didn’t lose to Merab in January 2025.
The lead-up to that fight was contentious and the animosity hasn’t gone anywhere.
Back in July, Dvalishvili slapped an Umar supporter at a RAF event in Georgia, nearly kicking off a massive brawl. Every mention of Nurmagomedov’s name during interviews elicits long, winding, emotional responses from “The Machine.”
“I don’t give a s–t about all of this, I don’t care about that,” Nurmagomedov said of the feud with Dvalishvili during an interview with MMA Fighting. “I don’t care about respect, disrespect, I don’t think about him. I don’t care.”
“He’s a good fighter but how he acts and moves, I don’t care about that,” he continued. “It’s not my business. I’m not his teacher or someone who can tell him he does wrong.”
“If he has a problem with me, if I do disrespect? Okay, you’re a man. A fighter. When somebody on the stage, anywhere, fans flips him off, he goes into the crowd and talks with them. Come to me, nobody is gonna hold you [back]. You can find my number, we can find space. Text me. Just text me.”
Umar finds all the talking to be a bit much.
“It’s not man’s style when you cry and shout disrespect,” Nurmagomedov concluded. “He has to change his nickname: no more ‘Machine.’ ‘Disrespect’ Dvalishvili. No more ‘Machine’ because he’s always crying about it.”
Nurmagomedov has his showdown in Shanghai with Song and then Dvalishvili is in a rubber match with Petr Yan for the bantamweight title in October. But we’d be shocked if these two didn’t end up meeting again in 2027, because if the UFC doesn’t book that fight soon they might end up scrapping in the streets.
