Merab Dvalishvili looks to make the second defense of his bantamweight title when he faces Sean O’Malley in a rematch at UFC 316 but it turns out he barely made it to his first defense back in January.
Following a dominant performance to best O’Malley and take the title this past September, Dvalishvili made a quick turnaround to compete again at UFC 311 when the promotion booked him against rising star Umar Nurmagomedov. At his absolute best, Dvalishvili had a difficult task at hand considering Nurmagomedov’s pedigree and background in grappling seemingly gave him the best chance to dethrone the Georgian champion.
Despite entering the fight as an underdog, Dvalishvili pulled off one of his biggest wins to date when he thwarted Nurmagomedov’s attempt at becoming champion, and he actually did it while at far less than 100 percent health.
“I think that Umar was going to be the toughest fight for Merab at the time,” Dvalishvili’s head coach John Wood told MMA Fighting. “I think we’ll end up fighting him again some time and same thing, we beat them. They asked for the fight and [they came out] ‘Oh I’m injured, I’m this, I’m that.’ Well, Merab was half-dead for that fight.
“You don’t understand, he had an open wound, he had a staph infection, he was on all kinds of antibiotics. I personally, if it was up to me honestly, and I haven’t really told anybody, I probably would have pulled him out of the fight. I honestly would have.”
That revelation puts Dvalishvili’s performance under an even brighter spotlight considering he found a way to eventually outwork Nurmagomedov and take over in the later rounds.
While conditioning and the ability to push the pace for 25 consecutive minutes has always been one of Dvalishvili’s biggest weapons, his coach was understandably concerned, especially with the reigning bantamweight champion undergoing treatment for a staph infection.
Studies have shown that antibiotics “wreak havoc” on athletic performance, but Wood admits he was stunned by Dvalishvili’s resolve to push forward to make the fight against Nurmagomedov happen on schedule.
“It was that bad but that dude that could barely walk but then he goes spar 10 rounds and looks phenomenal,” Wood said. “So I knew he could do it. So I knew that in the room, I was like we’re going to win this fight but in the back of my head, I was like Jesus, he’s so banged up.”
While he definitely wasn’t at his best in terms of his physical condition, Dvalishvili still put on a vintage performance and earned a unanimous decision win.
Afterwards, Nurmagomedov addressed his own injuries — in particular a gruesome broken hand, which happened during the first round of the fight.
As much as Wood sympathizes with any fighter dealing with injuries, he can’t feel too bad for Nurmagomedov while also knowing the difficulties that Dvalishvili was facing in the leadup to that fight.
“The fact that Umar’s like ‘Oh, I’ve got a busted hand.’ You guys asked for the fight,” Wood said. “We wanted to fight later on. We said we’d fight you. You wanted to take time off for Ramadan. So they pushed for it and took the fight.
“Then it’s ‘oh we’ve got this [injury], we’ve got that.’ Whatever, it’s the same thing. Everybody is always going to have those excuses.”
A similar situation happened to Dvalishvili after he defeated O’Malley to win the title this past September, and the always colorful former champion revealed afterwards that he was dealing with a hip injury that prevented him from doing much grappling during his training camp.
O’Malley had surgery to repair the damage, and he’s promised a much different performance when he faces Dvalishvili for a second time on June 7.
No matter the result, Wood promises that Dvalishvili is never going to offer up any kind of excuse about why he won or lost a fight, and he doesn’t expect that to change after his upcoming rematch against O’Malley.
“I will tell you this, if Merab ever loses that belt, you will not hear excuses from him,” Wood said. “You will not hear ‘oh my leg was falling off, it was raining outside’ or whatever it is they come up with. Umar was a tough fight. There was no doubt in my mind Merab was going to win that fight. The way that Merab fights, what he brings to the table is just different. People do not understand it.
“That’s why this fight is kind of intriguing because Sean kind of knows that now. Tim [Welch] knows that, they’ve kind of felt that. What’s going to happen is they’re going to have a good round or maybe a good round or two, but once things start the same way they did before, it’s going to be even more defeating and deflating than it was the first time. That’s where it brings a different kind of matchup for us.”
Banged up, sick or injured, Wood knows Dvailishvili is never going to shy away from a fight, and if the UFC would allow him to do it, he’d be the most active champion on the entire roster.
“He loves to fight,” Wood said. “He wants to fight three more times after this if he can. If he could fight every other month, he would.”
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