Merab Dvalishvili claims the UFC made him fight months earlier than he had planned for his first bantamweight title defense.
The Georgian defeated Sean O'Malley to win the title in September at UFC 306, and now makes his first defense next week against undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov. But he claims that due to injuries he has repeatedly mentioned, he would have preferred a date in February or even March.
Dvalishvili and Nurmagomedov have had an intense build-up to the fight, with the champion believing his challenger has not earned the title shot. He would have preferred to face O'Malley again, or the currently in-form former champion Petr Yan.
Merab Dvalishvili claims he was pushed into the defense of UFC 311 by promotion
Merab Dvalishvili hasn't been a big fan of his match with Umar Nurmagomedov since it was made last year, and wasn't excited about the January date either. He believes there are more serious contenders, and also that he could have been given more time to overcome some injuries.
Speaking to Michael Bisping on the Believe You Me podcast, he explained: “UFC needed me, so I stepped up and said 'no problem'. I'm grateful to UFC, so it's not a problem, but for me the best option was to fight in February or March.
“Because I had to deal with some injuries and Aljo too [Aljamain Sterling, his teammate] had a fight in December and it was a short time from December to January. I only had a month to prepare and I wasn't focused, I didn't have a camp.
“Umar was training for Song Yadong, but in the end he didn't fight him and now he fought for the title. So here we are, and it's all good.”
Merab Dvalishvili has previously claimed he suffered an injury heading into UFC 311
This is not the first time in recent history that Merab has reported an 'injury'. The Georgian was banned from entering the UFC Performance Institute around Christmas as Nurmagomedov's team was training there, claiming in a video that he had to go in for treatment.
“I'm standing here in front of the UFC PI and security won't let me in because they said, 'Umar Nurmagomedov is in' and they're protecting him,” Dvalishvili said on Instagram. “Don't worry guys, I'm not going to crush him before the fight.
“But January 18 is a different story. I can't compete in UFC PI because I was going to get treatment for my injury, I had to sign some cards and I had to have lunch with my friends. Who cares? I'm going to crush this man for all the disrespect, all the lies he said.
“You better show up, Umar. Okay, today you're protected. Don't worry, I'm not going to hit you before the fight. No one will protect you on January 18th.”
Umar Nurmagomedov is also dealing with injury issues heading into the UFC 311 co-main event
And it's not just Dvalishvili who is struggling with being injured in this fight. Nurmagomedov also suffered a broken arm late last year, sparking controversy when he discussed how he wouldn't have fought through it if he hadn't gotten a title shot in January.
“After I was in Dagestan, I hit my arm,” he told ESPN MMA. “I'm going to show the doctor and I'll show them. They didn't do an MRI, but when did they check bone? An x-ray? They took x-rays and said, 'You're broken [your arm]'.
“You know, after that, after twenty days, I went again, even though I was broken, I was running. I still want to be in shape, you know. Even that time I try to run, I try to do shadow boxing, I try to be in shape. And after 20 days I go again, and it has become much better.
“Even my punches and other things, I wrestle, I do wrestling lessons. All I can do. Then I called my manager Ali [Abdelaziz] and I told him, 'Hey, I want to fight.' He said 'but we said we were hurt' and I said 'I told you take this fight'.
“My manager and my brother said, 'Are you crazy? You can't fight like that' and they said no. They asked again, they called me again: 'Do you want to fight with Merab?' Of course I already called Ali and said: let it happen. I want to fight in Ramadan, if Merab wants to fight in Ramadan I want to be active.”
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