If Merab Dvalishvili is a carbon copy of longtime friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling, who dropped the bantamweight title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 last summer in Boston, then it’s reasonable to assume “Suga” will do likewise to “The Machine” at UFC 306.
Unless O’Malley got lucky in “Beantown.”
“Sean told me during the face off, he told me ‘what’s going to be different between you and Aljo? I’m going to knock you out the same thing.’ First of all, you don’t knock Aljo out,” Dvalishvili explained to MMA Fighting. “Yes, you dropped him and Marc Goddard stopped the fight early. Second of all, every fight is different. If you fought Aljo 10 more times, I believe he will beat you nine times. Same thing with me.”
So Merab math suggests “The Machine” will lose when they collide atop the UFC 306 pay-per-view (PPV) event on Sept. 14 at The Sphere in Las Vegas, then win the next nine fights. We may also see Dvalishvili “diving at Sean’s legs” if the gameplan remains the same.
“Don’t underestimate me,” Dvalishvili continued. “I’m a fighter. I’m here. Hard work got me here and you’ve got to show me respect. If you don’t show me respect, see what I did against Petr Yan? I’m going to do the same thing against Sean O’Malley. Same thing, [Yan] didn’t show me respect and I’m going to be rude. I’m going to make him humble. I don’t like these bully people. I don’t like these people who look over you. They look on top, they think they are better than you but we are the same. We’re fighters. Maybe I’m even better than him so we will find out soon.”
Dvalishvili doesn’t like bully people … which may suggest a certain degree of self loathing.
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