Ray Longo is happy that his two top fighters stuck to their promise of never fighting each other … not even for a UFC title.
Merab Dvalishvili absolutely dominated Henry Cejudo on Saturday night at UFC 298, out-wrestling the Olympic gold medalist en route to a unanimous decision victory.
Following the fight, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed that Dvalishvili would get the next crack at the bantamweight title, which is currently held by Sean O’Malley. “Suga” defends against Marlon Vera at UFC 299 on March 9th, and the winner will now face Merab.
Unless they move up to featherweight to challenge Ilia Topuria instead.
That possibility aside, it’s nice to see the UFC giving Dvalishvili a title shot. He’s on a ten fight win streak and could have already competed for the 135 pound title if it hadn’t been held by his good friend Aljamain Sterling. White isn’t a fan of friends refusing to fight, or fighters turning down a title shot. So it was ballsy of Merab to do both.
In a new interview on The Anik & Florian podcast, “The Machine” coach Ray Longo praised his fighter for taking that risk.
“To me, this is gonna to go down as one of the greatest human interest stories in MMA,” Longo said. “How these two guys formed a brotherhood, and they didn’t succumb to all the bulls—. They didn’t sell out for $100,000.”
“They put their friendship first and now everything’s working out, and they had to take a lot of s— for it. Aljo got tortured over it, Merab got tortured. Whether they want to say it or not, actions speak louder than words. We don’t have to hear it, we could see it.”
Credit goes to Aljamain Sterling as well for moving up to featherweight and making way for a Dvalishvili reign.
“Look, Aljo held to his word, he didn’t have to move up,” Longo said. “He wanted to move up. He wants to see Merab get that shot. This is a story that if ESPN did something, it’s absolutely fantastic and will never happen again because it’s hard to get two guys that are willing to put their friendship before money, and I’m loving it as a coach, loving it from the culture of the gym how people help each other.”