Syndicate MMA’s John Wood shares just how bad the bantamweight champion’s injuries were coming into his fight with Umar Nurmagomedov in Los Angeles.
The UFC came extremely close to having both its championship fights fall out for UFC 311. There was Arman Tsarukyan, who withdrew from his lightweight title bout against Islam Makhachev 36 hours before the event with a bad back. And then there’s bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili, who pushed through his own back issues plus an extremely messed up leg.
“Someone close to Merab told me that regular people probably would have had their leg amputated if they had to deal with the staph infection he had on his leg,” Ariel Helwani said on the Uncrowned UFC 311 post-fight show. “And he was just taping it up and going to practice. Also, as he alluded to, a very serious back injury.”
Dvalishvili’s Syndicate MMA coach John Wood gave more info on the injuries to Submission Radio.
“He got his leg cut up on our bleachers … you’ll see the pictures come out in the next few days,” Wood said. “But, like, cuts all over. Kept training through it, eventually got it stitched up too late, and the stitches busted. Then he re-stitched it, and then his whole shin became infected.”
“It was a concern of even getting cleared for this fight, and the staph infection, it was gone. But the skin? We were really afraid to the point where we got the commission to approve getting it wrapped. But Merab was like, ‘No, I’m not going to show any kind of weakness, I don’t care. It’s fine. If it breaks open, it breaks open.’”
“So he basically couldn’t use that leg for the entire camp,” Wood finished. “And then dealing with being on antibiotics and all that kind of s**t. And then his back, he said it the other day, he was out doing his workout in the street and he jumped up the wrong way and pinched a nerve, pinched the vertebrae and couldn’t walk for a week … It was a complicated camp.”
Through it all, Dvalishvili never considered withdrawing.
“I’m laid down in my bed, I’m depressed, I cannot go gym,” Merab said at the UFC 311 post-fight press conference. “Umar Nurmagomedov is talking trash. ‘Merab will pull out. I won’t be surprised if Merab pull out.’ I’m like, ‘No! I’m not going to pull out.’ I never pull out.”
And he went on to pull of an extremely impressive decision win over Umar Nurmagomedov, locking up his first title defense and showing just how difficult it will be for someone to take the belt off him.