Merab Dvalishvili shoots down Umar Nurmagomedov's title challenge in favor of Sean O'Malley rematch: "Doesn't deserve to fight me"
Merab Dvalishvili seems to lean toward a sequel clash against Sean O'Malley compared to a title defense against Umar Nurmagomedov next. At a UFC 308 fight week Q&A session with Alexander Volkanovski and Dvalishvili, a fan approached the microphone with a question for the latter.
A question was posed to the reigning UFC bantamweight champion regarding whether he was scared of Umar and ducking a challenge from him for December. When responding to this, Dvalishvili said:
"Let's boo to this guy... I'm not scared of no one, only God... Where is this guy [Nurmagomedov]? Where? He's taking fights, he's scared, he's fighting somebody else, where is he? Where is he? Tell me. He wants to get knocked out from somebody and then he's gonna make excuse."
"He's not going to make this fight. I'm not making fight. Dana White and Hunter [Campbell] making decision to who I'm going to fight next. I don't make decision. I never make decision. If Dana White tell me I have to fight Umar, I'll fight Umar. But you know what, Umar doesn't deserve to fight me. Sean O'Malley deserve to fight me and I'm going to rematch him."
Check out Merab Dvalishvili's response to the fan question regarding Umar Nurmagomedov below:
Merab Dvalishvili and his thoughts on the UFC 308 headliner
Merab Dvalishvili and his all-important first-title defense still has question marks around it as far as who the opponent will be and when it will go down. But since he's present for the UFC 308 fight week, it's understandable people would want his thoughts on tomorrow's (October 26) main event title fight.
Another champion looking to notch his first title defense is Ilia Topuria who looks to retain his featherweight belt against former 145-pound kingpin and current BMF champion Max Holloway. Dvalishvili was asked for his prediction on this bout with the footage popping up on the '@ufcontnt' account via X.
The 33-year-old bantamweight champion prefaced his statements by mentioning how he loves Max Holloway. That being said, Dvalishvili was pretty straight to the point in picking Topuria as he sees not only his title reign continuing, but a continuation of the unbeaten streak Ilia Topuria has within professional mixed martial arts.
The Georgian native referred to Topuria as his brother which seemingly would touch upon the fact that the featherweight champion is also from Georgia. While Dvalishvili did not specify an outcome in his prediction, Topuria himself has remained firm he will be the first to knockout Max Holloway.