“The Machine” wants another former champion on his resume.
Merab Dvalishvili is fresh off a Bantamweight championship-winning performance at UFC 306 earlier this month (Sept. 14, 2024) inside The Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, dominating Sean O’Malley over five rounds to dethrone “Sugar” (watch highlights).
It didn’t take five minutes before Dvalishvili was bombarded with questions about who his first defense might be against. While the running theory is that Umar Nurmagomedov is next in line after he handled Cory Sandhagen, “The Machine” believes he hasn’t done enough to earn a shot like he did.
“I keep saying he doesn’t deserve it because he has only fought one guy from the Top 15,” Dvalishvili said on Jake Shield’s new podcast, Fight Back. “It’s easy to market this guy [because of his last name] … Umar is a new challenge, and guys like this make me work harder.”
The Georgian champion has already put it out in the UFC universe that he wants to fight former two-time Flyweight champion, Deiveson Figueiredo, and doubled down on it with Shields.
“I think the most deserving guy is Figueiredo,” Dvalishvili said. “But, I guess UFC wants me to fight Umar. All the people, I see their comments, everybody wants me to fight Umar. So, I will fight Umar.”
Whoever Dvalishvili gets in his first 135-pound title defense, the opponent better be ready to fight because the new champion wants to be active.
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