Scouts Honor! Merab Dvalishvili Promises Not to Kiss UFC 311 Opponent Umar Nurmagomedov
Merab Dvalishvili promises there won’t be any funny business when he puts his bantamweight belt on the line for the first time.
The Machine’ returns to the Octagon at UFC 311 this Saturday night when the promotion heads back to the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. There, Dvalishvili will square off with undefeated Dagestani sensation Umar Nurmagomedov.
Nurmagomedov earned his first title opportunity with a unanimous decision victory over Cory Sandhagen, but ever since winning the 135-pound crown, Dvalishvili has insisted that Nurmagomedov hasn’t accomplished nearly enough to justify his spot in this weekend’s co-main event.
Speaking with Bloody Elbow, Dvalishvili echoed that same sentiment.
“Nurmagomedov is actually cocky. That’s his problem,” Dvalishvili said. “He thinks that he got this one easy, but he never faced me. And believe me he will know on the night. He will realize that he’s going to fight me and he will be humble. I have never said that he’s not a good fighter. I say he’s a good fighter, but he takes shortcuts, you know. He cheated a little bit because he was fighting nobodies and guys on their debut. And then from debut guy, he fought number two, you know, that’s, that’s a gift and that’s a shortcut. And that’s not how you want to earn your title fight.
“That’s not right. In my opinion, he was supposed to fight one more. Maybe against Song Yadong. But once the UFC asked me, I said, okay, I will fight him. But I wanted to fight in February or March. But that’s what I said. Why don’t I like him? Because he called me a fake champion. Also, he was disrespectful towards my country.”
Merab Dvalishvili promises no shenanigans, just punches in UFC 311 title fight
Dvalishvili claimed the bantamweight title in September with a lights-out performance against ex-champion ‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 in Las Vegas.
While the Georgian’s performance was fairly dominant, there were a handful of head-scratching moments, all of them perpetrated by ‘The Machine.’ Perhaps the strangest one came in the waning seconds of the second round when Dvalishvili planted a few kisses on the back of O’Malley while fishing for a guillotine choke.
This time around, Dvalishvili promises there won’t be any mid-fight smooches … Just punches.
“No kiss, just punch!” Dvalishvili said.
