Over the weekend, Merab Dvalishvili handed Umar Nurmagomedov his first career loss at UFC 311 and proved once again why he is a force to be reckoned with. UFC veteran Daniel Cormier seemed so impressed by his performance that they now believe there is only way to win against him- put him to sleep.
During his weekly podcast with former UFC fighter Ben Askren, Cormie surmised that till Merab is “up and walking”, he will continue to press his opponent. And courtesy of his undying cardio, he will be able to keep it up till the final bell rings.
“It seems like the only way to beat him, is by completely shutting out the lights…What he does is every second of the fight, he is just attacking your will. Till you eventually start going, ‘man do I really have what I have to have in order to get through this dude?’”
Interestingly, the last time Merab tasted defeat was via a finish, submitting to Ricky Simon back in 2018. That fight remains a rare blemish on his record in the UFC.
Since then, Merab has been on an absolute tear, racking up an incredible 12-fight win streak. Along the way, he’s defeated some of the best in the game, including Jose Aldo, Petr Yan Henry Cejudo, and Sean O’Malley.
His fight against Umar was no different from the other fights he has won either. The formula remains the same. His opponents, including Umar, have been technically superior fighters and have often rained down an ungodly amount of offense on him.
Never forget that Merab completely embarrassed Petr Yan pic.twitter.com/2LlCc70vdS
— Jay♂️ (@JayMMA4) August 30, 2023
For the first three rounds of the fight, Umar looked like he had it in the bag. But Merab persisted, launching periodic offenses, the frequency of which only increased in the championship rounds. Umar could hardly summon any power in his shots by this time.
Merab now hopes to fight in March or April where he might be fighting Sean O’Malley in a rematch, as teased by the UFC President, Dana White.
Dana White implies Sean O’Malley is fighting the winner of Merab vs Umar.
Talk about systematically ruining the sport. He got dominated by Merab & never truly defended the belt & he’s getting a title shot? (Vera was a fake title defense) pic.twitter.com/1Kd24lZWsI
— MMA Joey (@MMAJOEYC) January 15, 2025
However, his teammate and former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling doesn’t see a point in that.
Sterling has no faith in O’Malley’s skills
Sterling pointed out that Dvalishvili completely dominated O’Malley with his grappling and relentless takedowns, cruising to a unanimous decision victory at UFC: Noche.
Indeed, O’Malley didn’t look as sharp as he normally does with his striking and aggression against Merab, probably due to his hip injury. He has since had surgery and is on his way to a complete recovery. He had even claimed that he would be laying off social media to properly focus on the title rematch.
However, Sterling believes even if O’Malley does his very best to focus and prepare, there’s very little he could do differently to a machine like the champion.
“In my opinion, it’s a hard fight to sell. You’re not selling me that O’Malley does anything differently other than hoping to catch him once in 25 minutes.”
Aljo on a potential Merab x O’Malley rematch. pic.twitter.com/EjDqgva4E6
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 21, 2025
O’Malley could always heed Cormier’s advice and land that one punch and put Merab on the slab but doing that while moving backward and countering takedowns will be more challenging than anything he has faced in his career so far.
Take Yan’s fight with Merab in 2023 for example. Yan is an explosive striker, with a far better ground game than O’Malley. And he managed to stuff 38 of Merab’s takedowns. But, more importantly, he still got taken down 11 times during the course of the fight!
It wouldn’t be surprising if that is exactly what is in store for O’Malley if the rematch actualizes.
