Merab Dvalishvili Vs. Petr Yan Predictions – ‘He's Operating On A Different Level'

UFC Bantamweight Champion Merab Dvalishvili rematches Petr Yan at UFC 323 this weekend, as pros gave their predictions.

Merab is chasing history, knowing that a win makes him the first champion ever in the UFC to defend a belt four times within one calendar year. Dvalishvili’s confidence is riding high, based on the calibre of opposition he has beaten recently. He beat Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 to grab the belt, followed by wins over Umar Nurmagomedov (his first loss), O’Malley again and Cory Sandhagen. Merab also has the advantage since he has beaten Yan previously in 2023.

Despite the loss to Merab, Yan has secured three consecutive victories since then, defeating Yadong Song, Deiveson Figueiredo, and Marcus McGhee. Yan said he was not 100 percent healthy for the first fight, meaning there are no excuses this time around.

Predictions

"I’m always biased against Merab. I love Merab, bro. He’s one of my favorite people in the world. Um, yeah, I’m going with Merab, bro. Merab is just operating on a different level right now. The one out of everybody, out of all the champions right now that are just operating at a different level above their weight classes, I’d have to say Merab is like, Merab has probably got the biggest gap between him and his competition," Jamahal Hill

"I think Merab. I don’t watch too much, but I know he have a lot of cardio and I think Merab is going to win," Carlos Prates

"I like Merab. We’ve always had good chats and he’s always been good to me. I think it’s gonna be an interesting one. I just want to see a really good fight. I think it’s going to be interesting to see the adjustments Yan made and um see if he can solve Merab because Merab’s on fire," Michael Aswell

More Predictions

"I don’t know if anybody has the answer for Merab yet. I’ll be totally honest. He, uh, his kind of unhinged and unbridled just ability to fully get after it and have a crazy gas tank. His wrestling abilities, uh, he just he just poses such a threat that it would be very difficult for many people to shut that down," Etyan Ewing

"I don’t know how you can pick against Merab at this point. Like what he’s done to pretty much everyone he’s fought that, you know, everyone knows what’s going to happen. They still can’t stop it. Uh, you can always say like, "Oh, well, maybe, you know, Peter Yan can catch him," and that’s true, but maybe all those other guys could have, too, and it hasn’t happened yet. So, I would still I would still go with Merab on that one," Gerald Meerschaert

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