Merab Dvalishvili is giving his side of the story in response to Umar Nurmagomedov calling him out for an incident that occurred at RAF Georgia.
This past July, Dvalishvili found himself in a scuffle with a friend of Nurmagomedov’s that occurred at a pre-fight press conference when the friend confronted Dvalishvili for dismissing the possibility of a wrestling match with Nurmagomedov. Dvalishvili and Nurmagomedov previously fought at UFC 311 in January 2025, when Dvalishvili scored a thrilling decision win to successfully defend his bantamweight title.
Nurmagomedv recently spoke on the RAF Georgia altercation, asking “How do you live with that?” in regards to Dvalishvili’s behavior. On Tuesday, Dvalishvili fired back.
“Umar and some small people keep talking trash about me,” Dvalishvili said via a social media video. “You guys probably don’t know anything about life, but I am a man, and if you come to me, pulling me over, disrespect me, start loud talk with me in a different language, I will slap your face. Because that’s who I am. That’s how I grew up. That’s my culture and that’s what you’re going to get.
“So it doesn’t matter if I am in U.S., if I am in Mexico, in Australia, or in my country Georgia. If you come with bad intentions, you’re going to get bad intentions.”
In the clip of the confrontation that went viral, Dvalishvili appeared to slap a fan, later identified as a friend of Nurmagomedov’s named Ahmad. Dvalishvili didn’t deny initiating the physicality, explaining that his actions were a consequence of the manner in which he was approached and his Georgian upbringing.
He warned Nurmagomedov and company that the incident could have been a lot worse under different circumstances.
“After that incident happened, of course I realized I was in Georgia and especially I realized after, all the teenagers, all the Georgian kids from Tbilisi wanted to fight,” Dvalishvili said. “All my friends want to fight. That could happen really bad because let’s say 200 guests from different countries, we are three or four million people in my country, and even if 50,000 kids show up in the street, we all imagine what could happen.
“That’s why I find a guy who I got an accident with and I shake his hand and everything is done and we are cool. But you guys, small people, keep talking about you guys trying to provocate [sic], you guys wasn’t there, you guys don’t know what happened. So stop this trash talk, stop this nonsense talking and you guys are little people. You guys have to learn life. Peace everybody, let’s go.”
Dvalishvili closed out his video message commenting on a different rival, Petr Yan. The two are currently tied in their series with Dvalishvili defeating Yan in their first meeting in 2023, and Yan ending Dvalishvili’s bantamweight title reign this past December at UFC 323. All signs point to the fighters meeting in a trilogy bout later this year and Dvalishvili is just waiting for it to become official.
“Hopefully Petr will sign the contract,” Dvalishvili said. “I’m waiting for UFC announcement, waiting for when Petr will sign the contract, and UFC knows I’ve been ready since springtime and hopefully our trilogy fight happens soon. If later, I’m waiting patiently.”
