Ray Longo has concerns about Merab Dvalishvili, and they’re going public with the Petr Yan trilogy set for Saturday, Oct. 24, at UFC 333. MMA Sucka ran the item Thursday under the headline “Ray Longo Gives Troubling Update on Merab Dvalishvili.” The specifics of what Longo said weren’t spelled out in the material available here, so I’m not going to fill the gaps with guesses. What I can lay out is the timing, which is ugly, and the fact that Dvalishvili handed out some worrying material of his own this week.
On Wednesday, Championship Rounds posted a clip on X of Dvalishvili looking stripped down to cables and talking through his cut. “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 said. Read that again. A guy who already looks like an anatomy chart told the world he still had 11 pounds to go, and he volunteered that the last chunk would hurt.
That clip landed in the middle of a week when MMA Fighting’s Deep Waters crew was swapping weight-cut horror stories. Dustin Poirier recalled Islam Makhachev needing help to walk at the UFC 302 weigh-ins before showing up the next night looking like a different human. Cuts can go either direction. Some guys rehydrate into monsters. Some never come back from the sauna.
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The rest of Dvalishvili’s week looked like vintage Merab. On Tuesday, Championship Rounds shared video of him getting nipped by a horse he was petting. “Ouch, he bite me little bit. I know I’m delicious,” he said, which tells you his sense of humor is fine even if his forearm took a hit. Then at Thursday’s faceoff, he told Yan, “Talk now, enjoy. Saturday I will show you. I will eat you.” MMA Fighting also reported he’s keeping his cool about the rivalry.
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The Trilogy Setup
This is the third meeting between the two bantamweights, and the stakes are big enough that MMA Fighting ran a roundtable on what UFC 333 means for the legacies of Yan, Dvalishvili and Alexander Volkanovski, who faces Movsar Evloev on the same card. Sean O’Malley, who has his own history with both men, publicly wondered whether Yan has made a crucial mistake ahead of the fight. MMA Fighting’s Alexander K. Lee wrote that he’s currently leaning Yan, though he expects to flip-flop before fight night.
Sal’s Take
I’ve lost enough money on vague camp whispers to know that “troubling update” headlines move casual money faster than any film study ever will. Until Longo’s actual words are on the record, I’m treating this as smoke. The weight-cut quote is a different animal, because it came straight out of Dvalishvili’s mouth, and it’s the one I’d actually price in. Nobody tells you the final 11 pounds will be tough when they’re breezing through it. If the books shade toward Yan between now and Saturday, the question is whether Dvalishvili shows up rehydrated or hollowed out. The answer arrives Oct. 24, in the first round, when we see whether that tank refilled or stayed back in the sauna.
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