UFC president Dana White has reiterated his frustration towards bantamweight number one contender, Merab Dvalishvili.
This is not the first time that White has taken aim at Merab’s reluctance to fight for the title. Having done the hard work by getting himself into the number one contender slot, it appears that Merab is now undoing all of his previous hard work.
Merab Dvalishvili: Loyalty Over Legacy
Let’s start this off by crediting Merab Dvalishvili’s loyalty. Merab and former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling are extremely close friends. Not just teammates, which needs to be clarified, friends. These two are integrated into each others lives and into each others families. They have a bond that could be likened to that of two brothers. For this reason, the two have insisted that they will never fight each other.
The big question here is this… Is Merab Dvalishvili putting loyalty to his ‘brother’ over his own legacy in this sport?
Best Laid Plans
The UFC president’s frustrations continue to grow around Merab’s reluctance to fight for the title. Merab initially turned down the title opportunity when Sterling held the belt, claiming that he wasn’t willing to fight his friend for the title. Most fans around the world would consider this to be admirable. However, from what we have heard from Dvalishvili and Sterling numerous times, the plan was that Sterling would defend the title against Sean O’Malley and would then move up to challenge at featherweight. Therefore, opening the door for Merab to challenge for the bantamweight title.
Sterling stated on ‘The MMA Hour‘ with Ariel Helwani that there was a “99% chance” that he would move up to featherweight, even with a loss to O’Malley. He also claimed that one of the key motivations for this decision was that it was now “Merab’s time”.
However, as far as best-laid plans go, it didn’t quite go as Sterling and Dvalishvili had hoped. ‘Suga’ was able to catch Sterling with a beautifully times right hand that knocked Sterling onto the canvas, before following up with heavy downward strikes. The fight was called off and O’Malley was crowned the new bantamweight champion of the world.
With a spanner now well and truly thrown into the works, ‘Aljo’ has had a sudden change of heart. The former champion wants to reclaim his bantamweight title before moving up to featherweight. This was of course to be expected, as pride interjected itself into the pair’s plans. With Sterling eager to get his revenge on O’Malley, Dvalishvili has given his friend his blessing to attempt the feat.
Dana White “Hates It”
The UFC president was not happy to say the least, with Merab’s decision to step away from the title challenge back when ‘Aljo’ was champ. White claimed that Merab was damaging his own career in order to allow his friend a chance to achieve greatness.
Now, White is even more irritated by the situation. Not only was Merab not willing to fight his friend ‘Aljo’ for the title. He has now stated that he is happy to wait for his crack at the belt in order to allow Sterling a chance at redemption.
There may well have been a part of Dana White that understood Merab’s reluctance to fight his friend for the title but it appears that he is agitated by Merab’s latest declaration.
Speaking to the media at ‘Dana White’s Contender Series‘, White said. “Everybody in this room, and everybody that watches this video knows how I feel about this s**t. Yeah, erm, yeah, I hate it, hate it. If that’s… Why did you even get into this sport, if that’s your mentality and the way that you think? I don’t even want the title, I don’t even want the championship, we’re friends, we’re this, we’re that. This is not… You can be friends with everybody in this business. There’s a lot of nice people in this business. A lot of good people.”
White continue, “This is not about friendship, this is about finding out who the best in the world is. If you don’t want to find out who the best in the world is, this is not the place for you. You should be somewhere else. There’s plenty of places to fight where, they don’t give a shit what you do. It doesn’t work here.”
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images and Embed from Getty Images
