Merab Dvalishvili doesn’t understand the animosity getting lobbed his way by fight fans as well as his boss, UFC CEO Dana White, regarding his friendship with Aljamain Sterling, especially now that Sterling is no longer the UFC bantamweight champion.
In the aftermath of Sterling’s shocking title loss to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292, White issued a scathing rebuke of Dvalishvili’s approach to his career, even going so far as to question why Dvalishvili got into MMA if his loyalty toward his longtime friend and training partner Sterling was going to hinder his road to the belt. White’s words drew criticism from some, as O’Malley’s victory seemingly cleared up the Team Serra-Longo dilemma that Sterling and Dvalishvili faced, but they left Dvalishvili more confused than anything else.
“I don’t understand it,” Dvalishvili said of White on Wednesday’s The MMA Hour. “Maybe I don’t understand, maybe I don’t know. I’m a [real] fighter and what I know I deserve.
“My job is to fight and I’m ready to fight, and that’s all I know.”
Dvalishvili, 32, currently rides a division-best nine-fight win UFC streak and is the top-ranked bantamweight on the promotion’s own rankings aside from O’Malley and Sterling, however it appears as if that may not be enough to get him the title shot he’s long coveted.
Following O’Malley’s victory, the new champ skipped over Dvalishvili as a contender and instead called out No. 6 ranked Chito Vera for his first title defense. The UFC has yet to formalize O’Malley vs. Vera as the division’s next championship bout, but if that is the direction the promotion takes, it’ll leave Dvalishvili as the odd man out. And after tearing through a gauntlet longer than any non-champion has in UFC bantamweight history, Dvalishvili can’t help but feel aggrieved by how the situation appears to be playing out.
“Sometimes I feel really stressed,” Dvalishvili admitted. “I’ve never been [in a situation like] this. It’s just hard, you know? I’m so close and I’ve been training hard and everything, I always was focused on my next fight, my next fight, and I was going step-by-step.
“But now I know [my] next [fight] should be for the title and I don’t want to go backward and fight somebody, because every fight is risky, you know? And why do I have to risk challenging myself, cutting weight, and anything can happen. I can break my leg and if this happened in the fight and I lost a fight because of my injury or something, I’m going to lose my opportunity for the title fight. But this is big for my country, Georgia.
“No Georgians have fought for the title yet, so that will be so big for my country and for my career. I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I don’t want to miss this chance. And I want what I deserved, you know? I think I deserve to fight for the title, and I think I earned that too. I don’t want to another fight because we are talking about a sport, we are talking about ranking and who deserve the next title shot. I believe, and I know I deserve that.”
Making matters worse for Dvalishvili is just how dismissive the champ has been whenever his name comes up. O’Malley recently told MMA Fighting that he already feels as if he’s dispatched Dvalishvili because of his highlight-reel knockout of Sterling at UFC 292.
For Dvalishvili, that’s just more of the same tired rhetoric he’s sick of hearing.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Dvalishvili said. “Me and Aljo, we are friends, we are teammates, but come on. My name is Merab Dvalishvili, I’m [ranked] No. 2, Aljo’s No. 1. So how did [O’Malley] beat me? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. I’m a new challenge and he should fight me. I don’t understand why people are always blaming our friendship. Not only friendship, we are teammates, we are sparring each other and we push each other, and I always help Aljamain Sterling for his flights, when he prepares with his training camp, and he always helps me and we are friends. That’s all.
“The UFC never offered Aljo or me to fight each other. I don’t understand why they complain to us [about] we’re not fighting. Yes, of course. I say I don’t want to fight out Aljo, and I don’t want to fight Aljo, but if the UFC offers the fight and if UFC maybe offers good money, or if we are in a situation [where] there is no one else that we can fight, that maybe me and Aljo, we sit like always and maybe we can fight,” Dvalishvili continued.
“But now they make a big deal [about us being] friends? Aljo was always booked. There was Petr Yan, and next T.J. Dillashaw, after [that] Henry Cejudo, and they pushed [Sterling] back and made him come back quick and they give [him] O’Malley — and they never offered me Aljo. I don’t understand why people, whoever, they complain. I don’t understand.”
