Merab Dvalishvili likes to do his talking inside the octagon, but he has a few words for Umar Nurmagomedov.
The bantamweight stars fought this past January at UFC 311, where Dvalishvili defeated Nurmagomedov by unanimous decision to retain his UFC championship. It was an entertaining contest and there was immediate talk of a future rematch, but Dvalishvili has stayed busy in the meantime with two more successful title defenses in 2025 and potentially a fourth when he fights Petr Yan next Saturday at UFC 323. Nurmagomedov has also done his part to keep a rematch alive, beating Mario Bautista at UFC 321 in October.
“No. 1 thing: He didn’t respect me and he called me a fake champion,” Dvalishvili said. “I don’t know if he was tweeting or maybe his assistant or whatever it is. I know it wasn’t [Nurmagomedov’s manager Ali Abdelaziz] because Ali reached out to me and I told Ali and he wasn’t helping him tweet I kind of know who was helping him tweet, but what kind of man you are when somebody’s tweeting for you?
“So I don’t speak good English and we can maybe understand each other, but when I go to Twitter, I make sure I ask my assistant or somebody, maybe my friend, to translate this, but it’s always my words. Maybe help me to translate, but it’s always me. I will never let my manager or my friend or my brother tweet for me to say words that aren’t even mine. So that was a lot of disrespect through words from him, from Twitter.”
Making matters worse, Dvalishvili was irritated by Nurmagomedov calling his championship credentials into question, an accusation that seems absurd given Dvalishvili is poised to break the record for most UFC title defenses (4) in a calendar year.
He also doesn’t understand why Nurmagomedov would want to discredit him and potentially make his own win less meaningful.
“Also, he did call me a fake champion, so what I was mad about most, you know, he doesn’t respect me as a champion,” Dvalishvili said. “Yes, it’s a fight, we may lose, he was supposed to beat me, one punch can change everything, but I earned it. I earned it to get there, I was champion, and he should respect me because if you’re fighting for a championship and then you beat the champion, you don’t want to beat somebody stupid. You should give the champion respect, that’s what I was most mad about him, he doesn’t respect me.
Should Dvalishvili take care of business at UFC 323 and defeat Yan again (he holds a three-round decision win over Yan from March 2023), it’s unclear what’s left for Dvalishvili to accomplish at 135 pounds. He has repeatedly dismissed talk of moving up to featherweight and at the moment he is focused solely on his next title defense, not his beef with Nurmagomedov.
“He’s now making excuses and I’m done with him,” Dvalishvili said. “Next question, please.”
Subscribe to my channel
