Kevin Vallejos is booked to fight Aljamain Sterling, and before they meet in the Octagon he apparently wants to stand on the same side of the room as him. Sherdog reported on Nov. 12 that Vallejos wants to team up with Sterling ahead of their UFC bout, and that his aim is to help Sterling’s friend Merab Dvalishvili.
The Sherdog report doesn’t spell out what that help would look like. It doesn’t say when it would happen or whether Sterling’s camp has answered. The reporting also didn’t attach a date or an event to Vallejos vs. Sterling. Treat the matchup as real and the logistics as unannounced.
The Merab backdrop
The timing is hard to ignore. Vallejos’ offer surfaced a day after video of an altercation between Usman Nurmagomedov and Dvalishvili made the rounds on X. Championship Rounds posted on Nov. 11 that Ilia Topuria had shared footage of Nurmagomedov jumping Dvalishvili. Red Corner MMA then posted what it called the “Full footage of the scuffle” between the two.
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Topuria followed up with a post of his own. “Usman has reportedly been detained, along with the cowards who were with him,” he wrote, before adding, “Honor, respect, and humility aren’t words you preach. They’re values you live by.” Pay attention to the word reportedly in that first line. Topuria passed the detention claim along secondhand, and none of the material here includes an official confirmation from police, the UFC, or Nurmagomedov’s team.
Nina-Marie Daniele weighed in too. She wrote that Dvalishvili is like a brother to her, and she described the incident as a premeditated attack, adding that the people involved already had their phones out filming. She said she hopes the UFC bans Nurmagomedov and the people with him. She also pointed to Dillon Danis, saying the promotion banned him after he was the one who got attacked. Daniele further claimed Nurmagomedov tried to elbow Song Yadong after Song jumped the cage. That’s her account, and the sources don’t show the moment itself.
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Sherdog’s report doesn’t connect Vallejos’ offer to the Nurmagomedov incident, so I’m not going to connect it for him. The two stories happen to be sitting next to each other on the same timeline this week.
Quick take
Fans love to pretend fighters spend camp hating each other. Most of them would rather share a mat with a talented opponent than talk trash at him. The interesting wrinkle is practical. Any round Vallejos spends in a room with Sterling is a round Sterling gets to study him from a few feet away, with no cameras and no judges. If I’m in Sterling’s corner, I say yes, thank him, and keep a notebook in my back pocket. The polite part ends when the cage door shuts, and nobody on either side will be confused about that.
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