Merab Dvalishvili dismisses Umar Nurmagomedov’s injury claims ahead of UFC 311

Merab Dvalishvili is ready to enter the UFC Octagon later this weekend vs Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311 which will mark his first title defense since wins against Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 last year. The event will be the company’s first pay-per-view of the year and contains a stacked cardincluding the UFC Bantamweight Championship.

While the main event set to be for the lightweight championship, the co-main event will feature a bantamweight championship match between Dvalishvili and Nurmagomedov. The UFC bantamweight champion currently has a professional record of 18-4, while Nurmagomedov is undefeated in his career thus far with a perfect record of 18-0.

Leading up to the fight, the challenger, Umar Nurmagomedov, has been quite vocal about the fight due to injury, which also led to the cancellation of his bout against Song Yadong last year. However, the champion does not seem to believe the story.

During a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Merab Dvalishvili took as a goal Nurmagomedov and accused him of faking his injury.

“He’s screwing up. He’s a cheeky guy. I don’t buy his bulls**t. his injury” Dvalishvili he said. “Like, there is.” a little hand injury. I had an injury wouldg injury, but I do not mention this. I don’t bring that up this one. Everyone has injuries. Every professional fighter has an injury.”

Furthermore, Dvalishvili suggested that he had seen a video of Nurmagomedov training and believed that he used the injury as an excuse.

“He **is in agony.” He says he was training and I saw him hitting the bags hard good when he arrived in Vegas,” said Dvalishvili. “You can go and see in video he posted. He was hitting the bag and if you have a problem with your arm, you won’t be able to hit the bag. He hit the bags a lot normal and I think he only mentions this to justify himself.”

Check out his comments below:

Except from raising questions about his opponent’s character, Merab Dvalishvili also spoke loudly about his dislike of Umar Nurmagomedov. As UFC 311 approaches, Dvalishvili is impatient to potentially win the fight and put an end to his rivalry against Nurmagomedov.