Is Merab Dvalishvili carrying too much emotion into his upcoming clash against Umar Nurmagomedov?
In September, Dvalishvili delivered a dominant performance against ‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 to claim the coveted bantamweight belt. Now, ‘The Machine’ has his first defense lined up and it’ll come against none other than undefeated Dagestani sensation Umar Nurmagomedov — the cousin of UFC Hall of Famer and former lightweight titleholder Khabib Nurmagomedov.
In Las Vegas for Saturday’s final pay-per-view event of the year, Dvalishvili had to be separated from Nurmagomedov backstage after getting into a heated confrontation ahead of the UFC 311 on-sale press conference.