Dominant bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili notched up his third title defense at UFC 320 this past weekend with a unanimous decision win over Cory Sandhagen, and afterwards he made it clear he’s not interested in following the current trend of moving up a division to fight for another belt.
“This is my division, I’m comfortable here,” Dvalishvili said at the post-fight press conference. “I don’t want to try and go up and make a mess because I don’t want to be without an invite. Like if somebody shows up at [Aljamain Sterling’s] wedding tomorrow, I would crush his face in, we would be mad. … I’m comfortable here. I want to be my division’s champion.
“I have respect for all these guys, especially my brother Aljamain Sterling, Volkanovski, I don’t want to fight these guys. I’m good here. I don’t know, we’ll see. So far, I have next plan to fight Petr Yan.”
Dana White declared Merab to be the best bantamweight of all-time after he extended his current winning streak to 14 fights, but the champion believes he’s still got work to do in order to cement that kind of status above others like Dominick Cruz.
“Of course, it’s nice to hear from the boss,” Dvalishvili said. “I appreciate him, even if maybe I don’t agree with that. I mean, I’m not sure about that. But Dana White says these kinds of words to me, it means a lot and I’m grateful for UFC and for Dana White, of course, the job they’re doing and all the opportunities I’m given by UFC, I’m grateful for that. I’m thankful.”
Dvalishvili then went on to talk further about why he’s hesitant to consider himself the best of the best at 135lbs.
““I have two older brothers,” Dvalishvili said. “My second brother, he was a pilot 17 years in Georgian army, one of the helicopters. They have an expression like this: ‘You don’t say I’m a pilot until you retire and you’re sitting with your grandkids and you talk about it after. Before, you keep landing.’
“So I’m a fighter. I’m never going to say I’m the GOAT. I’ll keep getting better, I’ll keep landing, I’ll keep grinding, because this is MMA. You have to be humble, otherwise you will get humbled if you get cocky. So I’m just trying to get better and maybe I will say that when, God willing, when I will sit with my grandkids, then maybe I will tell them, ‘You know what? One day I was GOAT.’ But now, I don’t consider myself the GOAT because I keep getting better. I’m still a student in this game.”
