Merab Dvalishvili gave a progress report on his weight cut Wednesday, and the numbers come with a warning. “I cut 7 kgs [15 lbs] already and 5 kgs [11 lbs] left. This 5 kg will be tough, as you see I’m already skinny,” he wrote on X, in a post Championship Rounds shared alongside footage of a very lean Georgian.
Add it up and Dvalishvili is working through roughly 12 kilos (about 26 pounds) for his trilogy fight with Petr Yan at UFC 333 on Oct. 24. MiddleEasy noted the update came two days before the weigh-in, which puts the hardest part of the job squarely on Thursday and Friday morning.
The stakes explain why anyone is reading a weight update this closely. Dvalishvili (21-5) sits at No. 2 at bantamweight in the Knockout Daily rankings and is a former UFC champion, the first Georgian-born titleholder in company history. Yan (20-5) is ranked No. 1 and is the current two-time UFC bantamweight champion. Both men last fought on Dec. 6, 2025. Dvalishvili already holds a win over Yan, one of the former champions he beat during a 14-fight streak, the fourth longest in UFC history. He also owns the UFC record for successful takedowns with 119.
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That last number is why the cut matters more for him than for most. Dvalishvili’s whole style is pace: shoot, chain to the next attempt, stand, shoot again, for 25 minutes if that’s what it takes. A fighter who wins on volume can’t afford to rehydrate badly and show up flat in Round 3, and Yan, a Master of Sport in boxing, is exactly the kind of counter puncher who punishes a tired level change. I’ve watched plenty of good wrestlers lose fights on the scale two days before they lost them in the cage. Nothing in Dvalishvili’s history suggests he’s one of them, but “tough” from a guy who treats cardio like a personality trait is worth flagging.
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Otherwise, fight week has been loose on both sides. Dvalishvili posted on Tuesday about getting bitten by a horse while petting it (he took it well), and Yan was filmed fielding a wrestling challenge from a kid at a fan meet and greet.
The official weigh-in is Friday, Oct. 23, and Dvalishvili’s 5 kilos need to be gone by then. UFC 333 is headlined by Alexander Volkanovski vs. Movsar Evloev.
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