Merab Dvalishvili has posted his first public words since UFC 333, and retirement is nowhere in them. Days after Petr Yan beat him by unanimous decision to close out their trilogy, the former bantamweight champion took to Instagram to thank his team and tell fans he plans to return quickly.
Most of the post was gratitude. He thanked God, his cornermen, his Las Vegas training partners and his New York crew, then the UFC and his family. The part that matters for the bantamweight division came at the end. Dvalishvili wrote that he can’t wait to get back in the cage doing what he loves, that he is healthy and motivated, and that he’ll be back soon. He signed off by insisting the Machine never breaks.
The health claim is doing real work there. A fighter who just went the distance in a title fight and goes out of his way to say he’s healthy wants matchmakers to know he doesn’t need a long layoff.
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How he got here
Yan rallied at UFC 333 last Saturday to take the decision, as BJPenn.com reported. That makes two straight losses to Yan for Dvalishvili, who first gave up the bantamweight title to him at UFC 323 last year. Before those two defeats, Dvalishvili’s reign was a grinder’s highlight reel. He beat Cory Sandhagen, Umar Nurmagomedov and Sean O’Malley twice. That’s a resume most champions would happily retire on, and he clearly has no interest in doing that.
The outlet reported that his likely next step is a fight against one of the other top contenders at 135. It also noted that Dvalishvili has hinted in the past at dropping to flyweight, mostly back when his teammate Aljamain Sterling held the bantamweight belt.
The division isn’t waiting around for him. O’Malley has said a fight with Payton Talbott looks inevitable, with a possible Yan rematch hanging over that. Sterling, meanwhile, stopped short of calling Yan the bantamweight GOAT this week.
Quick take
Two losses to the sitting champion is an awkward spot at 135. Nobody is booking a fourth Yan fight soon, so Dvalishvili’s path back runs through a contender who could cost him another year. That’s why the flyweight idea interests me more than any bantamweight name. Joshua Van has been proving his title run is real and defends against Manel Kape at UFC 336, and a pressure wrestler with Dvalishvili’s pace would be a fresh problem at 125. I’ll only buy it if he makes the cut properly, with time and a nutritionist, because watching the most relentless cardio in the sport fade in Round 3 from a crash diet would be a waste. If he stays at bantamweight, give him the winner of whatever O’Malley and Talbott do next and let him chain wrestle his way back into the conversation.
