Merab Dvalishvili warns of injury concerns ahead of UFC 311 fight

UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili has issued an injury warning ahead of his co-main event at UFC 311.

As we know, Merab Dvalishvili is the king of the bantamweight division. He earned that title through years of hard work, capping it off with a victory over Sean O’Malley at the Sphere that earned him the gold.

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Now, it’s a case of protecting what he’s got. At UFC 311 this weekend, he will attempt to successfully defend his belt for the first time when he locks horns with Umar Nurmagomedov. As you can imagine, many are struggling to decide who to predict as the winner.

In a recent interview as part of his role as a Stake ambassador, Dvalishvili spoke candidly about some of the injury issues he’s had as of late.

Dvalishvili discusses injury concerns

“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. 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,” he continued. “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.”

Quotes via Bloody Elbow