Umar Nurmagomedov is going to fight the champion of the Bantamweight Division known as Merab Dvalishvili next month. It will be the first UFC event of 2025 and will have two great fights, one as the main event and the other as the co-main event. In the main event, we will see Islam Makhachev against Arman Tsarukyan.
This will be their second fight, as they have clashed before and the winner of that fight was Islam Makhachev. UFC 311 will be the first fight in which the two close friends, Makhacehv and Umar, will fight together against their opponents one after the other. The first press conference for UFC 311 was held on Friday in Vegas. Islam and Tsarukyan were talking calmly but on the other side, Umar and Dvalishvili had rising tensions.
UFC 311 Became Personal For Merab Dvalishvili
Merab Dvalishvili was asked about UFC 311 and his reaction to Umar Nurmagomedov’s callouts. Merab was not happy about it and according to him, it is now personal for him after Nurmagomedovs called him a coward. Merab said that they would face off in the ring and he would retain his title.
Merab Dvalishvili said this about Umar Nurmagomedov. “Of course, it’s personal, because every time I see him, I give him my respect, I shake his hand, I even tell him I was going to fight him one day. And he started talking trash online, and real men don’t do this. So it’s personal for me. I was going to take my time.
‘I was thinking of taking six months between my fights and I was going to enjoy it. [Then] when Petr [Yan] had a great fight against Deiveson Figueiredo, I was so excited, especially because he called me out. Since Umar wasn’t able to fight in March, I said OK, let’s fight Petr in March in Las Vegas. O’Malley was coming back in April. I was thinking of fighting O’Malley in April and I was thinking of fighting Umar in May. Now it’s flipped.”
Umar Nurmagomedov about Merab’s Claims
On the other side, Umar Nurmagomedov was also asked about Merab’s claims. Umar believes that he has done enough to fight the champion. According to Umar Nurmagomedov, it does not matter who the champion is, may it be Merab or someone else, everyone else including him wants to fight the champion. The MMA fans want this fight to happen and most importantly UFC has scheduled this fight. If Dana White wants a fight to happen it has the potential of blowing up and that is what makes sense.
When Merab tried to give a chance to other fighters like Petr, Umar, and the fans understood that Merab was trying to duck Umar. When he heard about the claims against him, he agreed to the fight and was confident that he would fight Umar Nurmagomedov and retain his title.
Islam Makhachev also had a few things to say to Merab Dvalishvili but he still paid his respect to Merab. He said, “I want to say just one thing. Merab, I don’t have anything for you past respect but don’t make the belt look bad. When you have some real contender, just fight.”
Final Thoughts
Islam Makhachev and Arman Tsarukyan had no serious tensions like the Co-main event fighters. They faced off and shook hands with each other and Dana White. After their previous fight, Islam fought against big fighters like Alexander Volkanovski and Dustin Poirier which blew up Makhachev’s profile and his defense of the title became even stronger.
This time Tsarukyan claims that he has a secret trick to take down Islam and earn the belt and when he was asked about the secret trick, he said that it would no longer be a secret if he gave some hints about it. Overall it seems very hard to dominate Islam Makhachev and other Dagistanis.
