Insulted Merab Dvalishvili Ready to Make First Title Defense Against Umar Nurmagomedov

December 8, 2024
2 months

The UFC is getting closer to a several-week break as the promotion typically takes time off toward the end of the year. But UFC Dana White is still booking matchups to keep fans salivating over the holidays. MMAfighting latest news shows that White recently announced that bantamweight Merab Dvalishvili will make his first title defense against undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov during UFC 311 on Jan. 18, 2025, at the Intuit Dome.

It will be a good night to celebrate the talent that Russian fighters bring to the map. The main event will feature a battle between Islam Makhachev and Arman Tsarukyan. With Dvalishvili, there was some intrigue surrounding who his first title defense would be against. Nurmagomedov was the logical choice, as he is still undefeated. However, there was a groundswell for Sean O’Malley to get an immediate rematch.

So what changed in the matchmakers’ minds?

Merab Said to Make the Fight Quickly

Dvalishvili likes to make funny social media videos online, poking fun at potential future opponents. Looking at MMA news sites reveals that Dvalishvili was questioned recently about whether Nurmagomedov had the right amount of experience to challenge for a championship fight. Nurmagomedov continued to nag Merab for a title shot.

Eventually, Dvashvili heard enough from Nurmagomedov. It almost caught White off-guard when Dvalishvili came into the office and decided to try and speed up the process.

“Merab came into the office late, told us that he is tired of listening to Umar disrespect him, and he wanted to make this fight happen as soon as possible,” White said. “We called Umar. He was sleeping in Dagestan, and he said, ‘Hell yes, anywhere, anytime.’”

Dvalishvili, who started his career with a 7-4 record, has worked his way into becoming one of the most unlikely UFC champions. Dvalishvili won his 11th consecutive fight when he beat O’Malley by decision last September at the UFC Noche event.

During Dvalishvili’s winning streak, he picked up impressive wins over Marlon Moraes, Jose Aldo, Petr Yan, and O’Malley. Moraes was a former bantamweight champion in the World Series of Fighting and challenged for the UFC crown. All of the rest of the aforementioned wins came over fighters who were champions in the UFC.

Umar Made a Quick Rise up the Ranks

Nurmagomedov had little chance but to be a good grappler. Umar is the cousin of former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and the older brother of Bellator champion Usman Nurmagomedov. Umar took a different path to the UFC than his relatives.

His first stop on the North American stage was a one-fight appearance with the PFL in 2019. When Nurmagomedov made his way into the UFC, he was able to rack up a number of wins quickly. Umar debuted with a submission win over Sergey Morozov in January 2021.

He hasn’t been the most active fighter. Umar only fought once in 2023, a first-round knockout of Raoni Barcelos that was his most impressive performance in the promotion, and twice this year. During Umar’s last fight, he took on former interim title challenger Cory Sandhagen. Umar wowed the MMA community by outstriking Sandhagen, who is excellent on his feet.

The best MMA news site thought that Sandhagen would be better in the striking exchanges, but the fight didn’t play out that way.

Champion Will Likely be an Underdog

Dvalishvili is a cardio machine who typically breaks opponents with his high-volume wrestling. That won’t be an advantage for him against Nurmagomedov. Nurmagomedov will have the capability to keep up with Dvalishvili on the mats.

While Dvalishvili is excellent at taking down opponents, he isn’t great at keeping his opponents down on the ground. Dvalishvili only has one career win by submission, and that was in 2017.

If Dvalishvili isn’t able to strike consistently with Nurmagomedov, it could be a long fight for the native of the Republic of Georgia. Dvalishvili was able to win the belt partially because he was paired with O’Malley, who is on the record as not liking wrestling and prefers to strike.

It will be interesting to see how Dvalisvhili tries to change his strategy in order to have a good fight with an opponent who should be able to counter a lot of his strengths in the octagon.

Main Card for UFC 311 is Filling In Nicely

There will be a lot of fans in Los Angeles for UFC 311 that will have plenty of variety in the types of fights they can watch. Former light heavyweight champions Jiří Procházka and Jamahil Hill will finally meet to settle their differences. Procházka and Hill were set to fight a few years back for the championship.

However, Procházka suffered an injury in training and wasn’t able to compete. It started a wild cycle in the light heavyweight division. Eventually, Alex Pereira came up from middleweight to give the division its own boogeyman. Procházka and Hill have both lost to Pereira twice. They are hoping to earn another shot at the champ.

Here’s at some of the other announced fights for the card:

Lightweight, Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano

Middleweight, Kevin Holland vs. Reinier de Ridder

Light heavyweight, Johnny Walker vs. Bogdan Guskov

Bantamweight, Payton Talbott vs. Raoni Barcelos

Heavyweight, Jailton Almeida vs. Serghei Spivac

Middleweight, Zachary Reese vs. Sedrigues Dumas

Lightweight, Grant Dawson vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira

Women’s bantamweight, Karol Rosa vs. Ailin Perez

Bantamweight, Rinya Nakamura vs. Muin Gafurov

Bantamweight, Ricky Turcios vs. Bernardo Sopaj

Flyweight, Tagir Ulanbekov vs. Clayton Carpenter

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By Dean McHugh.

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