‘Confident’ Umar Nurmagomedov Shuts Down Merab Dvalishvili’s Hopes of Victory: ‘He Can Never Beat Me Only Talk’

Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili plans on abandoning his traditional approach of takedowns and top control and resorting to striking to defend his title at UFC 311. But challenger, Umar Nurmagomedov doesn’t believe the champion has what it takes to beat him. Umar claims that Merab simply doesn’t possess the skills necessary to get the job done.

Despite their primary skill being grappling, Umar is confident of his own abilities, almost to the point where he makes his win at UFC 311 sound inevitable.

“If you are talking (about) something, please show it… Anything can happen in a fight. This guy will not beat me. Never. Ever. I can tell you this much. I cannot tell you about takedowns, about something else but he will never beat me. He doesn’t have the skills to beat me.”

Umar and Merab have been at loggerheads since the latter won the title from Sean O’Malley at UFC: Noche. Even back then, during the post-fight interview, when Joe Rogan asked Merab what he thought of a fight with Umar, the newly crowned champion had avoided the question by declaring his love for bossman, Dana White and the UFC.

He had been consistent in his view that Umar didn’t deserve the title shot. Even after he seemingly caved into public demand and what seemed like pressure from the UFC, Merab made things personal at the presser announcing their fight. Asking Umar to show him some respect, the champion claimed that he didn’t care about the belt as much as he cared about being respected as a man.

Of course, it has been a while since then, and Merab’s ambition has seemingly changed a little bit.

Merab wants to humble the Nurmagomedovs

The bantamweight champion believes Umar only got the title shot because of his last name. He believes the challenger is a “spoilt little baby” and wants to teach him a lesson by putting a dent in the legacy of his famous family.

Merab claims it will be a more enjoyable achievement for him than just defending his title successfully against Umar.

“He is coming from Khabib Nurmagomedov’s family and we all know Khabib was undefeated. Umar also has a brother (Usman) he is fighting in another organisation and also undefeated. To put one loss on Umar’s career, and the winner will be me, of course it will be big for me.”

Umar goes into UFC 311 with an undefeated 18-0 record, that he will look to preserve at all costs. His manager Ali Abdelaziz had earlier claimed that Umar’s ultimate goal was to break Khabib’s 29-0 record in professional MMA. He believed title shots would come to Umar if he ever got to the point that Khabib did.

But now that he’s scratching the doors of greatness, there are bound to be nerves. Hopefully, he can take a lesson from his champion brothers and bring the title home.