UFC President Dana White blasted Merab Dvalishvili for sharing a picture of a cut on his head during training camp for his upcoming bantamweight title fight against Sean O’Malley. The UFC boss did not mince any words and branded him ‘stupid’ for letting his opponent know what to target. However, teammate and former champion Aljamain Sterling sees no wrong in what ‘The Machine’ did.
What happened was a few days ago, Dvalishvili posted a picture of a cut he suffered from during training camp. This cut above his left eye is not severe enough to cause the fight to be cancelled but it definitely was not a minor scratch either. White was asked about the same during his press conference and he absolutely lost his marbles.
The UFC president stated that when something happened in training camp in boxing, it never gets leaked, in comparison to UFC fighters, who White claimed couldn’t wait to post on social media.
White added that some of the UFC fighters were so ‘dumb, it’s next-level unbelievable.’
Sterling did not take the criticism of his friend sitting back. He responded to White’s comments saying,
“Merab shares his stories of training camp… ppl LOVE him for it… nothing “stupid” about it, period. He’s training, and will show up Sept 14, like he always does. Is this about betting lines?…Respectfully, this reaction was a bit over the top IMHO.”
Everyone is making a much bigger deal over “the little cut”, even the boss. Merab shares his stories of training camp, the good, the bad, the ugly, and ppl LOVE him for it. There’s nothing “stupid” about it, period. He’s training, and will show up Sept 14, like he always does. Is… https://t.co/WEfQ4Ax2wA
— Aljamain Sterling (@funkmasterMMA) August 21, 2024
Dvalishvili has waited a long time for his shot at the UFC bantamweight title. At one point, he literally had to call out O’Malley on every social media platform and even made sketches to force the bantamweight champion’s hand.
O’Malley, following his win over Marlon Vera had wanted to change weight classes and fight Ilia Topuria for the featherweight title. But given that Dvalishvili rained on his parade by not letting him skip the division and the title defenses, ‘Suga’ is definitely going in for the kill and the Georgian’s cut doesn’t help.
O’Malley gifted new weakness to target?
The bantamweight champion is one of the best strikers in the UFC fight now. He is a good boxer, he’s tall, lanky, has a great reach and hit is insane accuracy; that last part is reminiscent of his own idol, Conor McGregor.
Like McGregor, ‘Suga’ is too quick and too precise and can target every the tiniest part of the body on his day. And given that Dvalishvili aims to smother him down with his wrestling, it is likely that O’Malley will try to get him to bleed as quickly as possible and hopefully finish before it goes into the championship rounds.
Needless to say, he has an advantage going into the fight knowing about the cut. Many times in the past, cuts from training camp have easily been opened up with the lightest of touches. Blood flowing down severely impacts vision which further impacts depth and distance perception.
White believes that letting the world and O’Malley know of the cut was a huge mistake as it can be used against him. However, evidently, Dvalishvili and his team do not think they have given anything away by revealing the injury.
