Dvalishvili is willing to vacate his belt and change divisions if fellow Georgian fighter Topuria becomes the No. 1 contender at bantamweight.
Merab Dvalishvili is willing to do some crazy things to help out his friends in mixed martial arts.
When his friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling held the bantamweight belt, Dvalishvili went into a holding pattern at the top of the division rather than fight “Funkmaster” for the title. And now that he holds the 135 pound belt, Merab says he’s prepared to move up to 145 to make room for fellow Georgian fighter Aleksandre Topuria.
UFC bantamweight Aleksandre is the older brother of featherweight champ Ilia Topuria, who is currently angling to move up to lightweight for a second title run. While Aleksandre has only had one fight in the UFC thus far, he has a lot of hype behind him … and the support of Dvalishvili.
“In my opinion, he will also become a champion,” Dvalishvili said at a press conference in Georgia (via Europop.ge). “Until now, he put his career on pause because of Ilia, but now he is in the UFC and showing what he can do. Before, there was no other Georgians in Las Vegas. Now there are several of us at Syndicate MMA. Even though we don’t spar with each other, we are still doing great things together.”
“Alexandre has his own path,” he added later. “It will take at least two years for him to reach the championship. I have said before that if Alexandre becomes a contender, I will give up the belt. Either I will move up, or I will move down, or I will have super fights. We will resolve it amicably. And in general, this is a good problem.”
What a wild man. Can you imagine Dvalishvili at flyweight? We can’t, but our days of doubting “The Machine” are over after his impressive performance against Umar Nurmagomedov in his last fight.