UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili says he will not press charges against Usman Nurmagomedov or the members of Team Nurmagomedov involved in their Abu Dhabi altercation, and he wants every one of them let go. In a statement posted to X on Friday, Nov. 13, Dvalishvili wrote: “I do hope they release everyone. I would not press charges. I want peace and the best for all.” MMA Fighting and Spinnin Backfist both relayed the statement, and BJPenn.com framed it as Dvalishvili asking authorities to show Nurmagomedov mercy.
The timing matters. Earlier that same day, ACD MMA, citing The National, reported that Nurmagomedov had been sentenced to six months in prison in Abu Dhabi, along with all five other members of his team who were involved. Per that report, each was fined Dh300K and will be deported once the sentences are served. Dvalishvili’s statement landed roughly seven and a half hours after that report started circulating.
The incident itself went viral on Wednesday, Nov. 11, when Ilia Topuria posted footage of Nurmagomedov and several members of his team going after Dvalishvili ahead of RAF Abu Dhabi. Topuria followed with a post saying Nurmagomedov had reportedly been detained “along with the cowards who were with him,” and he went after the camp’s public image, writing that honor, respect and humility are values you live by and that they had shown none of them. Sean Strickland also piled on with a string of insults aimed at Nurmagomedov.
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Where it started
Dvalishvili also explained the backstory in a clip shared by Chris Weidman and reposted by Championship Rounds. He traced the beef to an earlier encounter in Georgia, saying he was provoked and reacted, and that once he saw his Georgian friends wanted to fight Nurmagomedov, he offered a handshake to end it. “And that was just done,” he said.
He was clear that he doesn’t see this as a national grudge. “I love Dagestan, especially all the hard working people,” Dvalishvili said. “It’s nothing about Dagestan vs Georgia. It was just between fighters bro.”
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That last part is worth paying attention to, because the online reaction was drifting fast toward exactly that framing. The victim of the attack stepping in to say it was personal, and to name the region he’s supposedly feuding with as a place he loves, takes some of the air out of that.
Whether Dvalishvili declining to press charges changes anything legally in the UAE is something none of the reporting so far addresses. For now, the sentence reported by The National is the latest official word.
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My take: Dvalishvili has spent his whole career winning by outworking people who expected him to break, and this is the same instinct pointed somewhere new. He got jumped, the other side reportedly got six months and a deportation order, and his response was a handshake story and a request for release. Topuria and Strickland went for the throat on X. The guy who actually took the hits went for de-escalation, and his statement is now the next thing Abu Dhabi authorities have to weigh.
