Graphic! Merab Dvalishvili Reveals Gruesome Injury Suffered Ahead of UFC 311 Title Fight
Merab Dvalishvili scored his first successful defense of the bantamweight title at UFC 311, handing previously undefeated Dagestani sensation Umar Nurmagomedov his first career loss via unanimous decision.
But even before ‘The Machine’ stepped foot inside the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, he was dealing with a gnarly injury that could have put the kibosh on his title fight had the California State Athletic Commission caught it.
While appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show on Monday, Dvalishvili revealed how he gave the CSAC the slip during his pre-fight physical.
“I was worried the commission was not going to let me fight… California has a very strict commission… The commission guy asked me to show him my shin, so I lifted my left pant leg to show him my shin,” Dvalishvili said. “He kept talking and then asked to show my other leg, so I showed him my left leg again, and then he never knew about the cut.”
Merab Dvalishvili’s Coach reveals how he injured his leg ahead of UFC 311
Dvalishvili’s coach, John Wood, also offered some insight into how his fighter ended up with 27 stitches and a staph infection ahead of one of the biggest fights of his career thus far.
“He got his leg cut up on our bleachers,” Wood told Submission Radio. “He was walking by the bleachers and literally got cuts all over his leg. He left it, kept training through it, and eventually got it stitched up. Then stitches busted, and then he restitched it, and then just his whole shin became infected. It was a concern of even getting cleared for this fight.”
