Merab Dvalishvili backed for UFC 311 success by Aljamain Sterling

Merab Dvalishvili has been tipped for success by his close friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling.

At UFC 311, Merab Dvalishvili will defend his UFC bantamweight championship against Umar Nurmagomedov. For many, he’s seen as the underdog – which is an insane turn of fate given that he became champion in dominant fashion just a matter of months ago.

Alas, there are still plenty of reasons why Merab Dvalishvili should be seen as being more than capable of knocking off Nurmagomedov. At the absolute minimum, he deserves a great deal of respect for getting to the position he has in the promotion.

In a recent YouTube video, Aljamain Sterling explained what Merab Dvalishvili needs to do in order to win.

Aljamain Sterling backs Merab Dvalishvili

“I think if we can keep the fight where we want it, Merab is going to shut a lot of people up and going to prove a lot of people right that he is who he says he is,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “No disrespect to Umar by any means.

“For me, it just comes down to one guy has done the work and one guy being propped up by the accolades of what his relative has done. I understand he’s trying to carve out his own name in history, but facts are still facts. The jury’s still out on Umar. We don’t really know if he’s really that guy just yet.”

“How many of those strikes did he actually get off on Cory Sandhagen in Rounds 1, 2, 3 before Sandhagen started to slow down and get noticeably tired? So, there’s a lot of things we really paid attention to when we were breaking down the film. … I think this is going to come down to pressure. I think Merab is going to put the pressure on him, and I think good things are going to happen.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie