Merab Dvalishvili compares himself to Mike Tyson and Jon Jones amid ‘drama’ before UFC 311 title defense
Ahead of his UFC 311 title defense against Umar Nurmagomedov, Merab Dvalishvili has compared himself to combat sports greats, Jon Jones and Mike Tyson.
After winning the UFC bantamweight title back at UFC 306, Merab Dvalishvili made it relatively clear that he wasn’t interested in defending his title against Umar Nurmagomedov.
Despite that, the promotion announced that ‘The Machine’ would take on the undefeated Russian in the co-main event of UFC 311 which has been highlighted by fans as a blockbuster card.
Merab Dvalishvili makes a bizarre comparison of himself to Mike Tyson and Jon Jones
Similarly to his teammate, Aljamain Sterling, Dvalishvili didn’t get much choice when it came down to defending his title and it will only have been four months since he won the strap that he turns around to defend it.
The Georgian believes that since he has become champion, there has been a lot of ‘drama’ surrounding him. At UFC 310 while cornering Sterling, Dvalishvili got into another altercation with a fan, which isn’t the first time.
More recently, the 33-year-old took to social media to reveal that he wasn’t allowed to go and train at the UFC’s Performance Institute in Vegas as Nurmagomedov and his team were occupying it and the promotion wanted to avoid any unnecessary run-ins.
“The last couple of fights I’ve gotten a lot of attention, people recognize me but people give hate on Instagram and social media which is very hard for me,” Merab told ESPN MMA.
“The best way now is I should just stay busy and take fights and that’s it because I was gonna enjoy some time but now I feel like I’m Conor McGregor a lot of drama comes even Jon Jones and like, Mike Tyson used to get a lot of drama but it’s all good,” he continued.
Merab Dvalishvili worries fans with injury admission
The aforementioned incident regarding the 33-year-old champion being turned away from the UFC P.I isn’t because he was going there to train, but he was going to get treatment for an injury.
Dvalishvili admitted he was scheduled to go there to receive treatment and sign some documents. Fans began to share their concern, wondering what injury he has so close to his fight.
Despite that, the Georgian is still scheduled to make the first defense of his 135lb title on January 18 and he will unfortunately likely be going into the fight not at 100%.
