One fight. That’s what the betting public is leaning on. Merab Dvalishvili walks into the UFC 333 co-main event Saturday at Etihad Arena as an underdog against bantamweight champion Petr Yan, which is a rare place for him to stand, and I think the market got there by remembering last December and forgetting the previous decade.
I’ve made plenty of dumb bets in my life. I once took a guy at short odds coming off two years on the shelf because I liked his walkout song. So I understand recency bias the way a recovering gambler understands it, which is intimately. This price on Dvalishvili smells like recency bias wearing a nice suit.
What the market is pricing in
The case for Yan is real, and I’ll give it its due. At UFC 323 in Las Vegas on Dec. 6, 2025, Yan showed improved takedown defense, paired it with high-volume striking, and snapped a 14-fight UFC winning streak that ranks fourth-longest in company history. That’s the best counterargument, and it’s a good one. Yan solved the problem once, so why not twice?
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Because one solved problem is a sample size of one, and Dvalishvili’s body of work is a sample size of a career. Go back to their first meeting in 2023, when Dvalishvili landed 11 takedowns and flat-out dominated. Now we’re 1-1, with the guy who won the first one by a mile getting plus money in the rubber match. If you flipped a coin twice and got heads then tails, you wouldn’t start paying a premium on tails.
The numbers that break the shell
Here’s where I live, so indulge me. According to MMA Junkie’s pre-event facts, put together with UFC research analyst Michael Carroll, Dvalishvili has landed 119 takedowns in UFC competition, the most in company history. He holds the single-fight record for takedown attempts with 49 at UFC Fight Night 221. He landed 20 takedowns at UFC 320, the most ever in a UFC championship fight and one shy of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s all-time single-fight record of 21. He is the only fighter in history to land 10 or more takedowns in five separate UFC bouts.
That last stat is the one I’d tattoo on my forearm if I were the tattoo type. Five times he’s hit double digits. That number tells you he does this to good fighters, repeatedly, in the late rounds, when everyone else’s tank is reading empty.
Yan’s game is built on reads. The Stadium Rant preview called him “Computer Yan” for the way he processes opponents, uses distance and picks combinations. I love watching it. But a computer needs processing time, and Dvalishvili’s entire business model is denying you processing time. Every reset Yan earns costs him energy, and over 25 minutes those costs compound. Yan stuffing shots for three rounds is a heroic effort. Stuffing them for five rounds against a guy who has 12 unanimous decision wins in the UFC, the most in company history, is a different math problem.
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Yes, Yan has volume. He’s landed 1,456 significant strikes at bantamweight, the most in divisional history, and his 10 knockdowns are tied for third-most at 135. Respect. Dvalishvili, though, has landed 2,672 total strikes at bantamweight, also a divisional record, and he out-landed Marlon Moraes by 212 total strikes at UFC 266. Those are different metrics (significant versus total), so I won’t pretend it’s apples to apples. What it does tell you is who sets the pace, and the guy who sets the pace in a five-round fight usually sets the scorecards too.
The comeback profile
The market also seems to forget who Dvalishvili is when he loses. He’s one of three fighters in UFC history to win an undisputed title after starting 0-2 in the promotion, alongside Rafael dos Anjos and Miesha Tate. He went from 0-2 to a 13-fight bantamweight winning streak, the longest in divisional history. He made three title defenses in one calendar year, which no other bantamweight has done. Guys who lose and then go win 13 straight don’t sulk about the last result. They go back to work.
And the fight week footage suggests that’s exactly what’s happening. MiddleEasy’s rundown of UFC 333 Embedded Episode 2 noted Dvalishvili putting training ahead of his home-gym project. The episode also featured a horse biting him, per MMA Junkie, which I choose to read as a sign that even livestock can’t slow this man down. I am not putting money on the horse angle. I’m telling you about it because it made me laugh.
Where the value lives
I hate narrative picks, so let me be clear about why this one is cold arithmetic. The Yan side of this line is betting that UFC 323 was the new normal. The Dvalishvili side is betting on the longest-running dataset in the bantamweight division: 119 takedowns, five double-digit takedown nights, a pace nobody has matched across five rounds. When the public flips a guy with that resume to plus money after a single loss, that’s the market overcorrecting, and overcorrections are where the money is.
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Could Yan’s improved wrestling hold again? Sure. It held once. But I’d want to see it hold twice before I paid the favorite’s tax on it, and the book is asking me to pay that tax in advance.
I’m on Dvalishvili at plus money, and I’ll be watching rounds 4 and 5 like a man who has seen this movie before. Prelims start at 2 p.m. ET Saturday, Oct. 24, on Paramount+.
