LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Merab Dvalishvili[/autotag] is letting go of his personal animosity toward Sean O’Malley and locking in with tunnel vision as the days wind down to the UFC 306 headliner.
Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) has been trying to fight O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) since he started his octagon tenure with consecutive losses in 2017. He finally gets his wish on the biggest stage when he challenges for the bantamweight title in Saturday’s Noche UFC main event at Sphere (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+).
The road to a UFC title shot hasn’t been easy for Dvalishvili. He needed a 10-fight UFC winning streak to get his crack at UFC gold, and he intends to make the most of it. That requires extreme focus, and part of that goes back to letting go on the origins of his beef with the champion.
“No, it’s not personal,” Dvalishvili told MMA Junkie and other reporters at Wednesday’s UFC 306 media day. “This a professional fight for the UFC belt. This is for legacy. I was mad at him a couple times. I was very mad when he mentioned my country in a disrespectful way. Because my country, it’s more than religion for me. I have my country here (on my necklace), and that’s why I started fighting, because I want to represent my country. This is healthy competition. This is what we do. Then when somebody, it doesn’t matter who, disrespects your family or your country, you have to be mad. If you’re a man you have to be mad and I wanted to smack his face that time.
“But now I have an even more important thing. To beat him on Saturday night and grab his belt, take his belt. I can talk after the fight. Maybe I can forgive him, or we can talk. I want to keep it that way. I want to just win and show him he has to be humble and he has to respect everybody.”
Dvalishvili appears very aware there’s no greater payback than achieving his title dream. The Georgian is arguably the worst stylistic matchup for O’Malley in the bantamweight division, and if his relentless grappling approach has the same success as his most recent string of fights, he could be leaving with the belt in one-sided fashion.
Although his path to victory is clear in the eyes of many, Dvalishvili emphasized he’s preparing for all possible outcomes – because that’s what it takes to be UFC champion.
“Stylistically, it’s easy for me because my cardio, my grappling, my style should work against him,” Dvalishvili said. “But at the same time, we see what he can do. He can throw something big. It’s a challenge. I can dominate, but he can throw one punch and he can change everything. Every fight is like this. I don’t look at any fights in the UFC as easy. There is no easy fights here. Not always the best fighter wins. We’ve seen it so many times.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.