Umar Nurmagomedov has some questions about the deeper quality of Merab Dvalishvili’s character after the latter slapped a friend of the former recently. This transpired at Real American Freestyle’s first foray into Georgia, with a friend of Nurmagomedov’s, identified by the Dagestan fighter as Ahmad, asking the former UFC bantamweight champion a question regarding if Dvalishvili would ever grapple Umar in RAF.
Dvalishvili was on hand to wrestle former MMA opponent Henry Cejudo, with Merab Dvalishvili going on to upset the Olympic gold medalist wrestler.
Umar Nurmagomedov and Merab Dvalishvili have previously fought under MMA rules, with Dvalishvili winning a unanimous decision over Nurmagomedov to retain his 135-pound crown in January 2025 at UFC 311. But yet, the bad blood still seems to be ever increasing between the two, with Dvalishvili responding by saying he would wrestle anyone except Nurmagomedov, who he called a ‘spoiled guy’ before things got physical with Ahmad.
On-site security diffused the skirmish, but there are clearly still residuals coming out of the issues that transpired at RAF Georgia. By way of an interview conducted by Adam Zubayraev, with an excerpt of the overall video shared via X account @RedCorner_MMA, Nurmagomedov said,
“[Merab’s] the one who has to live with it. For example, can you imagine a Georgian coming up to me in Dagestan? … If a Georgian tells me not to talk to Merab, and I hit him from behind and insult him in my own language, I can’t imagine myself doing that. But as a person, how do you live with that? And the people who defend it, that means there’s something wrong there. You have to call wrong things wrong. No matter who does it.”
Umar Nurmagomedov delves further into the slap situation, addresses if a Merab Dvalishvili rematch is desired for the future
Umar Nurmagomedov also took time to give further backstory to the Ahmad altercation and how Nurmagomedov isn’t paying much mind to Dvalishvili as Nurmagomedov has a clash with Song Yadong set for August 29th at UFC Shanghai. Touching upon these aforementioned pieces, Nurmagomedov stated [via MMA Fighting],
“Yeah, Ahmad walked up to him and said, ‘Why are you speaking for someone who isn’t even here?’ He didn’t insult him, didn’t say anything rude, didn’t show any disrespect. He said, ‘Tell him to his face what you want to say. Why are you swearing here?’…. I swear, I don’t care at all what [Merab Dvalishvili] does or how he feels. I’m being honest with you.”
“In general, there are probably people who want to prove something. Brother, I have nothing to prove to anyone and I have nothing to prove to Merab and I have nothing to prove to Georgians. I just want to live my life, that’s it.”
This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM
