Less than a week out from his premiere title defense, Merab Dvalishvili has revealed he dealt with a rather “serious” injury concern before his UFC 311 co-headliner with Umar Nurmagomedov, and will reveal the extent of the setback following the culmination of their pairing.
Dvalishvili, the current undisputed bantamweight champion, is set to return to action this weekend in the co-main event of UFC 311 in Inglewood, taking on the 18-0 unbeaten force, Nurmagomedov in his first outing donning the divisional crown.
Winning the belt back in September in another grudge fight at the Las Vegas Sphere, Dvalishvili bested former champion, Sean O’Malley with a unanimous decision win in the headliner of Noche UFC — extending his remarkable winning spree to a staggering 11 straight contests.
Merab Dvalishvili reveals “serious” injury worry pre-UFC 311
However, less than a week out from his fierce clash with Russian standout, Nurmagomedov, Dvalishvili informed Bloody Elbow during a recent interview how he dealt with a rather “serious” injury concern ahead of his fighting comeback at UFC 311, but will remain hush on exactly what occurred until after the matchup.
“I’m good now, I will post the injury or whatever after the fight, but before, I don’t want to show and panic people,” Merab Dvalishvili explained. You know, the injury was serious, like, not a joke. “Because I take a fight on six weeks’ notice I was training hard and I get a lot of pain banged up and I was dealing with some other injuries too, but thank God now I’m OK and ready to go.”
“I was ready to fight and come back after five or six months, like every champion does,” Merab Dvalishvili said. “They even take more time. But when I said I was going to fight February or March, Umar started complaining and blaming me and disrespecting me. When I said fight February or March, he said February fight was in Australia and March was Ramadan. I had no idea because last year, Ramadan was in May. It’s not my problem also – I’m a champion. So Umar wanted to fight January, and UFC asked me. Then I went to UFC and I said, OK, I will step up. I love UFC so no problem.”
