Daniel Cormier Calls Merab Dvalishvili the ‘Real Deal,’ Predicts Tough Test for Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311

Despite being a close friend of the Dagestani camp, former UFC double champ Daniel Cormier is ringing the alarm bells for Umar Nurmagomedov. Over the last few months, the overwhelming consensus has been in favor of Umar, however, Cormier has asserted that the champion Merab Dvalishvili was “the real deal“. 

Cormier believes Merab is going to make it a rough night for Umar, and if he doesn’t come prepared, all this hullabaloo about title fights would have been for nothing. 

“Merab is the real deal. He is going to get pushed in a way that he never has. And I truly believe that the biggest push for Merab will come just in the cardio because he is going to push a pace that Umar has never seen before.”

While Umar remains undefeated and highly skilled, Cormier believes Merab’s relentlessness and experience in fighting top-ranked fighters will pose problems, particularly if the fight goes into the championship rounds. Merab is known for pressing his opponents and taking them down to the point of exhaustion. 

While Umar has shown he can handle five rounds, a win over Cory Sandhagen doesn’t compare to Merab’s experience. Merab’s last four fights have been against giants of the sport, like former champion Sean O’Malley, Petr Yan, Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo, and the legendary Jose Aldo. He’s managed to take each of these fighters to the final round and win. 

So, it would be foolish to believe Umar will just tear away to a title win at UFC by being a technically superior fighter. It would be a bigger mistake to assume, he won’t have prepared for Merab’s conditioning during the camp.

However, at this point in their feud, the two fighters seem to running entirely on their personal dislike for each other.

Go back to Georgia, Umar tells Merab

Yes, that was a point of discussion at tonight’s presser.

Prior to the presser, Umar had questioned how Merab was representing Georgia. He had claimed that while Merab had the tattoos and the hat, his Georgian identity didn’t extend beyond that. Merab, in response, had issued a threat and reminded Umar that he couldn’t even represent Dagestan.

This discourse spilled over to the presser tonight. Umar asked Merab if he wanted to represent Georgian values so much, that he should move back to the country and do something to make other’s lives better. 

The back-and-forth eventually shifted to fight-related jabs, but the underlying tension looks to have been rooted in deeper history. With a complicated past between Russia and Georgia, this discourse has added fuel heading into their highly anticipated showdown.