Merab Dvalishvili is preparing to defend his UFC Bantamweight title on UFC 316, a world away from a tough start in his MMA career.
The Georgian hunter is preparing for a rematch against Sean O'Malley in New Jersey on 7 June.
Merab Dvalishvili defeated O'Malley in September to become UFC Bantamweight Champion and hope to retain it in the UFC 316 main event.
O'Malley will know what to do to beat DvalishVili and can get inspiration from the two defeats of the champion at the start of his MMA career.
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Merab Dvalishvili lost Van Darren Mima and Ricky Bandejas in 2 Early MMA fights
Given how impressive he has been to the UFC in recent years, it is hard to believe that the career of Dvalishvili in MMA started with two defeats.
“The Machine” started his MMA career in 2014 in the Ring of Combat Promotion. He debuted in ROC 47 and took on the American hunter Darren Mima in a three-round fight in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
He gave it everything, but fell short in the fight. Despite the fluctuating of Mima with a large right hand in the first round, the jury members Mima brought the majority decisions victory to start the career of Dvalishvili with a defeat.
While he bounced back with a victory over Dennis Dombrow at ROC 49, he would again taste the defeat when he made his CFFC debut in November 2014.
It was here where “The Machine” took a colleague -praising star in Ricky Bandejas, also in the third fight of his career. Bandras would fight in the Octagon in Bellator in his decade -long career, but he never corresponded to the success that Dvalishvili had.
However, that didn't matter in their only fight at CFFC 43. The couple had a back and forth meeting, although Bandejas proved his superior grab skills throughout the game.
He managed to mount Dvalishvili in the fight at some point, but the Georgian escaped impressive and went against his American opponent.
They lasted the fight of 15 minutes, but the jury members could not look beyond the Bandejas, which gave him the unanimous decision victory to hope for more misery on Dvalishvili at the start of his career.
Merab Dvalishvili bounced back to become a UFC world champion, ten years later
Despite that great upset defeat, Dvalishvili Hard Training followed to realize his dream to become a world champion in MMA.
He picked himself up to go on a six-fighter-winning series and won the ROC title to earn a chance to fight in the UFC for the first time in 2017.
Dvalishvili debuted in UFC on UFC Fight Night 123 and lost to Frankie Saenz on the provisional map due to a split decision. He succeeded this with an entry defeat against Ricky Simon in April, and started his run again at a low point.
December 9, 2017
UFC Fight Night: Swanson vs. Ortega
Merab lost his UFC debut versus Frankie Saenz via SD (28–29, 29–28, 29–28)
Case of damage> check. Still a very close fightpic.twitter.com/1c3jxakbyn
– Ocelot MMA (@OCELOT_MMA) 2 June 2025
View tweet
That would be the end of Dvalishvili who lose fighting. After those losses, he was given valuable experience to increase his combat -IQ, using his elite conditioning to make his opponents with ruthless struggle pressure, making it nickname “the machine”.
This culminated in the UFC Bantamweight Championship victory of DvalishVili on O'Malley on UFC 306, which goes back to UFC 316.
He managed a unanimous decision victory over Umar Nurmagomedov between these fights and started his title line in the dominant way.