Merab Dvalishvili wants his bantamweight title back, and he wants Petr Yan to feel it. Ahead of their trilogy fight at UFC 333, the Georgian told MMA Junkie that beating Yan is the whole plan, and the humbling will take care of itself.
“I need to win against him and then he will be humbled,” Dvalishvili said. “That’s what he needs, I believe. That’s it. Automatically, he will be humbled.”
The rematch headlines the co-main slot on Oct. 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, streaming on Paramount+. Yan (20-5 MMA, 12-4 UFC) walks in as champion. Dvalishvili (21-2 MMA, 14-3 UFC) walks in rested, which matters for a guy who fought four times in a calendar year. He’d defended the belt three times before Yan ended that run at UFC 323 this past December.
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The series sits at one apiece, and neither result was close. Dvalishvili said as much, describing the first fight and the second as one-sided and calling this “one of the important fights in bantamweight history.” He added that “we all deserve to find out who’s really the best.”
The two have logged 50 minutes together in the octagon, so the film room shouldn’t hold many surprises. Dvalishvili isn’t leaning on the tape, though. He said the familiarity “helps, but same time not,” pointing out that the first two fights went opposite ways because they happened on different days with different mindsets.
“But one thing for sure: I am very confident, very comfortable that I’m going to win this fight,” he said.
The press conference jab
Yan took his shots at the pre-fight press conference, and Dvalishvili didn’t pretend otherwise. He told MMA Junkie that Yan made fun of him there, and that he wasn’t surprised because that’s normal behavior from the champion. His read on Yan was blunt: “As a person, he’s just rude.”
He also gave Yan some credit outside the cage, calling him good as a family man and noting he’s a father of two. “This is a good fighter,” Dvalishvili said, before adding that he’s still not a fan of Yan as a person.
He framed the whole thing as competition. “I just want to win against the best guy, against Petr Yan, and that’s it,” he said. He also called Yan “the most dangerous guy” in the division, which is a generous thing to say about the man who took your belt.
Quick take
Two lopsided fights going in opposite directions means nobody in Abu Dhabi has this solved, including the two guys in the cage. I like the pitch Dvalishvili is making here. He’s selling a correction. The schedule argument is the one I’d keep an eye on, though. A champion who fought four times in a year and then lost the belt in December is now coming in fresh, and the version of Dvalishvili who shows up after real rest could look a lot different from the one Yan beat. We find out Oct. 24, and if this one goes the distance, I hope it’s 25 minutes of the kind of pressure that made him champion in the first place.
