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Dana White has given up on trying to figure out Merab Dvalishvili.

The No. 1 contender at 135 pounds has developed a reputation for posting viral videos on social media, but his latest efforts have caused White some major frustration. Dvalishvili recently revealed a nasty cut over his left eye, which happened just weeks ahead of his main event bout with bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 on Sept. 14.

White was confounded by Dvalishvili’s decision to share that injury with the public, so one can only imagine how he felt when Dvalishvili subsequently posted a follow-up in which he was seen snipping away at stitches with a large pair of scissors.

“Isn’t he awesome?” White said when asked about the clip following Tuesday’s Contender Series event at UFC APEX in Las Vegas. “I think he’s just f*cking with me now, to be honest with you.”

The extent of Dvalishvili’s injury is unknown, though it’s been cause for concern for the UFC and its fans as cuts have often led to bouts being cancelled in the past or to fighters entering their matchups with a significant handicap given that the cut could presumably be easily reopened. Dvalishvili appears to be confident that the cut is a non-issue ahead of his title challenge.

Since beginning his UFC run with back-to-back losses, Dvalishvili has rattled off 10 consecutive victories. The Georgian standout likely would have fought for a title earlier were it not held by his close friend Aljamain Sterling, who dropped the title to O’Malley at UFC 292 in August 2023.

White trusts that Dvalishvili knows what he’s doing and isn’t jeopardizing his long-awaited championship opportunity, not to mention the headlining bout of an event that White and company are promoting as the “greatest live sporting event of all time.”

“Do what you want,” White said. “You ever see the scissors they take stitches out with? They’re tiny and they have that thing on there so you don’t cut yourself. You can slide them up under the stitches, you don’t cut yourself. This guy had f*cking bush shears that he was using, that you trim your f*cking bushes with, that gardener’s use. Whatever. Good for him.”

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It’s no secret that former two-division UFC champion Daniel Cormier always keeps a watchful eye on the best wrestlers coming up in the United States.

As a two-time Olympian and current coach of a high-school wrestling team, Cormier stays close to the sport he grew up loving before becoming a fighter, but it turns out he actually interacted with a future American gold medalist several years ago and didn’t even know it. Primarily training out of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Cormier crosses paths with a lot of fighters, Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners, and wrestlers who also work out at the gym — and that included future 2024 Olympic gold medalist Amit Elor.

“A little backstory, Amir Elor used to always be around the Bay area with a woman named Carolyn Wester, she coached at a club called Wrestling Prep and she teaches wrestling,” Cormier said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “She’s a lady that coaches and she’s a tremendous coach, very smart lady.

“She would bring Amit into [American Kickboxing Academy]. I didn’t know who she was but she would wrestle with the boys. I have all these pictures of Amit, and Carolyn would take pictures of Amit with the team. That’s one thing they do in MMA gyms. At the end of practice, everybody gets together for a photo. Amit’s in a lot of those pictures.”

Elor’s work obviously paid off. She captured gold at 68kg with a stunning run through the 2024 Olympics, ultimately outscoring her opponents by a ridiculous margin of 31-2. At 20 years old, she also became the youngest American to ever win a gold medal in wrestling — a record once held by Henry Cejudo, who won his gold medal in 2008.

None of it came to a surprise to Elor’s coach, who told Cormier before the Olympics started that she was going to dominate the field.

“Carolyn goes, ‘Amit’s wrestling [at the Olympics],’ and I go, ‘The little girl from the gym?’” Cormier recounted. “She’s like, ‘Yeah, and she’s going to win.’ I’m like, ‘She’s that good?’ And she was like, ‘She’s going to win.’”

Not only did Elor win in emphatic fashion, she shared that glory with her teammates after the U.S. women went home with two gold medals — the other won by Sarah Hildebrandt — a silver from 20-year-old phenom Kennedy Blades, and a bronze for Helen Maroulis.

“She killed it,” Cormier said of Elor. “That first match, talk about bad luck. The World Champion from the year before from that weight class gets the World Champion from the weight up in her very first match. [Elor] destroys her. She went onto kill the rest of the field after that.”

While Elor’s focus remains on wrestling, especially with the 2028 Olympics happening in her home state of California, she has a lot of time left to accomplish even more goals.

Elor could potentially wrestle across at least three Olympic cycles and would only be 28 when it was all over.

When the day comes that she hangs her singlet up for the final time, Cormier believes Elor is destined to make waves in MMA.

“She’s going to fight,” Cormier said. “She’s going to be a fighter. For as good as she is in wrestling, she does really well in judo, she does tremendous in jiu-jitsu. If she does start doing [MMA] competitively, they’re going to be in trouble.”

First things first, Cormier wants Elor to stick with wrestling because she’s going to remain a huge asset to the American team. As much as Cormier loved his UFC career and the money and accomplishments that came along with it, he knows there’s nothing quite like chasing Olympic glory.

“We can’t lose Amit Elor,” Cormier said. “I love when great wrestlers come into mixed martial arts, but I’m always for them doing it after they’re done chasing their Olympic dreams. You don’t get to do that again. If you have an opportunity to be the best in the world, you chase that as long as you can and then you go do something different. I don’t think it should be coming earlier than needed.

“You go and wrestle as long as you need to wrestle, and then you come to try and make the money as the UFC fighter.”

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Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal won’t be making his return from retirement as scheduled at the upcoming BKFC 66 card on Sept. 13 in Hollywood, Fla.

The Bellator and Strikeforce veteran, who last competed in 2019, suffered an injury in training that forced him off BKFC 66, where he was expected to face BKFC champion Dave Mundell. Promotion officials confirmed the news to MMA Fighting on Wednesday.

Lawal’s comeback arose unexpectedly after he retired five years ago mainly due to a long list of injuries that continued to pile up over the years. Following the end of his fighting career, Lawal turned his attention to coaching, where he’s become one of the lead instructors at American Top Team in Florida.

With his body healed up and still training alongside many of the top fighters in the world, Lawal decided to return to action but told MMA Fighting that he isn’t planning on sticking around for more than maybe a couple of fights.

Now it appears he’ll have to wait until a later date to make that return.

As for Mundell, he won’t stay on the Sept. 13 card against a new opponent but instead is expected to shift to a different BKFC event later in the year.

BKFC 66 moves forward with Alberto Blas defending his bantamweight title against Ryan Reber, while Howard Davis takes on James Brown in the new co-main event.

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Kayla Harrison has nothing but respect for Alex Pereira.

Earlier this year, Harrison and Pereira shared a fight card for the first time, with both picking up big wins at UFC 300. That evening, Harrison made her UFC and women’s bantamweight debut with a second-round submission of former champion Holly Holm, and Pereira successfully defended his light heavyweight title with a first-round knockout of former champion Jamahal Hill. After the event was over, the two shared a moment backstage where Harrison — a two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo — even saw fit to give Pereira a yellow belt, despite “Poatan” not using any grappling skills in his UFC 300 matchup.

Speaking recently with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Harrison explained why.

“A yellow belt is a joke, obviously,” Harrison told said. “You don’t normally give adults yellow belts, so that was part of it. … And to be fair to him, he was showing me the videos of him training and he was kicking [ass]. I wish that he would release this one, oh my God — he did the move I taught him and then he did the move you do if the move doesn’t work. I was like, ‘Dude, you look like a judoka!’ It’s crazy how fast he picks stuff up. He looked like a legit judo [player]. He foot-swept the shit out of this kid. Like slipping on a banana peel.

“So I gave him a yellow belt as a joke.”

Like Harrison, Pereira also came to MMA after an extensive career in another combat sport: Kickboxing. A two-division GLORY champion, Pereira only joined UFC in 2021 and has already carved out a Hall of Fame worthy career, winning titles in two weight classes, headlining multiple marquee events, and earning Fighter of the Year honors in 2022. He’s also become one of the biggest stars in all of MMA and is the current frontrunner for 2024 Fighter of the Year honors as well — and Harrison couldn’t be happier for him.

“He’s literally living his best life, isn’t he?” Harrison said. “He doesn’t speak English but his character comes across. I think that’s what makes a superstar special: You can feel their aura and their character. I don’t even know if you call it charisma, but that thing. He has charisma.

“I’m just happy for him. When you hear his story and when you hear — he probably doesn’t talk about it a lot but he was an alcoholic and he started competing. Dude, that’s badass. I just love to see it.”

Pereira recently headlined UFC 303, knocking out Jiri Prochazka in their 205-pound title rematch. Afterward, Pereira said he was open to defending his title against Magomed Ankalaev, or perhaps moving up to heavyweight in an attempt to become the first three-division champion in UFC history.

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Khabib Nurmagomedov isn’t a fighter who lives with regrets.

As much as he accomplished on his way to retiring as the undefeated, undisputed UFC lightweight champion with a perfect 29-0 record, there were always fights Nurmagomedov wanted that just didn’t happen. Perhaps the name at the top of that list is former UFC welterweight king George St-Pierre, who was always someone Nurmagomedov admired and considered a legitimate challenge.

The name that probably comes up the most, however, is Tony Ferguson because he was scheduled to face Nurmagomedov a total five times while both were competing near the top of the lightweight division. While there’s a part of Nurmagomedov that wishes he got the chance to face Ferguson, he also considered that fight a mismatch in his favor, so it doesn’t carry the same weight with him that it does with fans.

“I feel a little bit sad, but at the same time, I always understand my game it’s the worst for him,” Nurmagomedov told the Inspire Me podcast. “He don’t have wrestling. He don’t have grappling. What’s he going to do with me? How is he going to stop me? Only chance how he can stop me, it was only a lucky punch.

“Like with everybody, like with Conor [McGregor], with [Dustin] Poirier, with Justin Gaethje, everybody talks about, ‘Oh, they can stop him if Khabib [going to get caught with] a lucky punch.’ But other stuff, how’s he going to stop me?”

While Ferguson was definitely the most accomplished 155-pound contender that he never fought, Nurmagomedov always felt confident he would handle that challenge like all of the others in his career.

Nurmagomedov only lost a couple of rounds throughout his entire UFC run and he just doesn’t believe Ferguson had the weapons to beat him.

“When he fought with Danny Castllo, [Beneil] Dariush, Justin Gaethje, Charles Oliveira, all these guys mauled him,” Nurmagomedov said. “He didn’t have wrestling defense. He didn’t have good grappling. My fighting game, it was the worst for him.”

It’s wildly unusual for any fight to get booked five times and never actually happen, but Nurmagomedov knows he and Ferguson both wield some responsibility for those cancellations.

That’s another reason why Nurmagomedov can’t look back with regret, because ultimately it just wasn’t meant to be when it comes to this particular rivalry.

“I’m a little bit sad, but what can we do?” Nurmagomedov said. “If God has some plan, nobody can change this. We were supposed to fight five times. He pulled out, I have injuries, this is not under my control.

“I feel a little bit sad, but at the same time, [I] showed who had what level.”

While Nurmagomedov retired after his third title defense in 2020, Ferguson remained active but has fallen on harder times of late. He’s now suffered eight consecutive losses in a row, and all signs point toward his time with UFC coming to an end.

Ferguson has hinted that he plans to continue fighting outside UFC, but his struggles didn’t stop him from firing back at Nurmagomedov’s suggestion that his only hope in that potential matchup was a lucky punch.

“Lucky punch now … [I] was going to leave you alone but ew,” Ferguson wrote on Instagram. “Just couldn’t help it. Ya [fat f*ck]. What a f*cking p*ssy, coward like chicken. Keep hiding Khabieber 29-1.

“Until further notice, let ol’ fathead know what time it is crew.”

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Michael Aswell has a brand new scar to go along with his additional $ 15,000 and a promise of a future UFC contract.

On Tuesday night on the latest episode of Contender Series, Aswell faced off with Bogdan Grad in a co-main event featherweight matchup, that turned out to be one of the best fights in Contender Series history. Though Bogdan ultimately won a split decision and a UFC contract, Dana White was so impressed with both men’s performances that he awarded them both their win and show purses, along with an additional $ 5,000 bonus. And that was before he even saw the extent of the damage Aswell suffered.

Late on Tuesday evening, White took to Instagram to show off a gruesome gash over Aswell’s eye, along with the ensuing stitches required to repair it.

Dana White Instagram

Dana White Instagram

While the loss mean Aswell did not receive a UFC contract that evening, White did announce that he spoke with UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby and, once he’s fully healed up, the UFC intends to offer Aswell a short notice opportunity the next time a fighter is forced out of about. But judging on those pictures, it could be a while before we see Aswell inside the octagon.

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Cris Cyborg is one of the greatest fighters in women’s MMA history, but Larissa Pacheco still expects some fans and experts to downplay her feat if she beats her fellow Brazilian countrywoman in the co-main event of PFL’s Oct. 19 pay-per-view in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Pacheco enters the match riding 10 straight victories, a run that includes PFL championship wins in two different weight classes and a 2022 decision win over Kayla Harrison.

“I think this [Cyborg fight] gives a gigantic push to my career,” Pacheco told MMA Fighting. “Beating her, when I beat her, they’ll still say, ‘Oh, it’s easy now, Larissa is nine years younger than Cris.’ They’ll always have excuses for my wins. But I couldn’t care less. What matters is to go there and win and prove it to myself. I have nothing to prove to anyone else. No one pays my bills and I don’t owe anyone anything.”

Harrison, who’s likely one win away from a shot at the UFC bantamweight title after dominating Holly Holm in her octagon debut, has only lost once in MMA. That loss came at the hands of Pacheco, though the two-time PFL champion still went 1-2 over three contests against Harrison under the PFL banner. She hopes Harrison never loses again.

“I want her to be champion, to continue to grow, and everything goes well in her life, and she only has one [loss] there. ‘Larissa! Larissa!’ Echoing forever in her head,” Pacheco said with a laugh.

Cyborg has won six straight MMA bouts since leaving UFC in 2019, and has also picked up four wins in boxing. Pacheco admits she wondered if PFL would ever get this fight done after some delays, but kept training for months hoping it would eventually materialize.

“[This fight] is not a dream for me, it’s not something I’ve looked up to my entire career because she wasn’t even in the PFL until this year,” Pacheco said. “But a friend of mine reminded me that she told me, seven years ago, that she was a fan of Cyborg, and I told her we’d be fighting one day. And it’s happening now.”

“We have an idea of how the fight will play out, but we never know for sure,” she continued. “We have a similar style, we’re both aggressive and walk forward the entire time, no turning back. For some people, it’s like a lottery. Who goes down first? I don’t know, it’s hard to say, but all I know is that we’ll both give our all in there. Cris has an unique style and will do everything she can to win, so it’s going to be a historic fight.”

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Sean Strickland fully acknowledges that he’s probably going to rub some people the wrong way and you can definitely add musician Machine Gun Kelly to that list.

Back in February, the former UFC middleweight champion met the rapper and rock star, whose real name is Colson Baker, at a Power Slap event when they were introduced by mutual friend and Monster Energy ambassador, Luke “The Dingo” Trembath. The encounter almost immediately turned volatile with Strickland later claiming that he “almost hit a vampire,” while calling the Cleveland native a “goth South Park character.”

The incident didn’t sit well with UFC CEO Dana White, who later said that the altercation wasn’t Kelly’s fault but rather “you can’t bring Sean Strickland around any other human beings.”

While Strickland has addressed the incident numerous times, Kelly finally gave his side of the story about the run-in with the former UFC champion when appearing on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast.

“I don’t know this guy from a crumb of bread, right?” Kelly said. “I didn’t know who he was when I met him. I got hip afterwards that he’s like insanely racist and homophobic and just not my type of guy. So I would have never even wanted to shake hands with him in the first place.

“But he is also just a representative of every person who’s too scared to just be themselves. Because if you’re comfortable as yourself, you don’t care who anybody else is and how they are.”

Prior to Kelly’s comments, Strickland gave his latest version of the encounter while speaking to Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick on his podcast, Verse Us.

“He’s wearing like a f*cking vampire trenchcoat, has a f*cking purse, painted nails and ‘Dingo,’ you know me, dude. Why would you do this?” Strickland said. “Why would you set me up? I just look at him, like my brain I’m trying to process. I’m looking into the void and I think I just said ‘what the f*ck?’ Are you a f*cking gay vampire?

“Then the way he looked at me, it wasn’t funny. Like if you would have said something funny like ‘oh yeah, you look like a white trash hillbilly,’ I would have been like [yeah], I drive a Tesla, that’s gay. He looked at me with such f*cking disgust, there’s this little voice in my head said ‘we’re fighting.’ Then my girl got involved and broke us up.”

There was no physical altercation but clearly Strickland still harbors ill will towards Kelly after the incident went viral.

For his part, the 34-year-old musician isn’t losing any sleep over the incident but he did offer Strickland some friendly advice about how to handle himself moving forward.

“He’s so dumb that I’m going to tell him right now you should not keep saying stuff because it just makes me look better but you’re going to keep saying stuff,” Kelly said to Strickland. “So I know that you’ll react and say more things but you just shouldn’t as a person who’s just giving you big bro advice.

“Learn this — shut the f*ck up and don’t speak on me anymore and live your life. But you won’t and I’m going to continue laughing at you because you’re a f*cking idiot.”

Of course it didn’t take Strickland long to respond just like Kelly expected would happen.

“Getting lectured by a guy who drinks blood and wears a purse,” Strickland wrote. “Dawg you had a mid life crisis and tattooed your entire body. The “the x community of intolerance.” Ya’ll I’d hang out with you toxic trolls any day over this c*nt. Go back to cutting yourself you f*cking weirdo.”

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Marco Tulio wants to secure a finish against Matthieu Duclos at Tuesday’s Contender Series event to ensure he’s leaving the UFC APEX with a deal this time around.

The Chute Boxe middleweight, who turns 30 years old on Friday, first competed on Contender Series in August 2023 against Yousri Belgaroui, a man with past kickboxing bouts against the likes of Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya. Tulio ultimately won in an upset, however his decision victory wasn’t enough to convince White to offer a UFC contract.

“I knew I had won the fight there,” Tulio told MMA Fighting. “And the contract, given who I had fought, I expected to be offered as well. I fought someone that everybody thought should be in the UFC already. If the decision went the other way, I knew he would be in.

“‘Poatan’ was there, Glover Teixeira was there [to corner him], so there was a lot of buzz around him. The UFC and Dana White were posting about him. For many people, I was just seen a punching bag there, someone put there to lose [to Belgaroui]. I went there to show who I was, to show my talent and potential, and I left with my hands raised.”

Still, Tulio’s performance boosted his win streak to six straight. He then returned to LFA in January and knocked out Cemey dos Santos to earn another Contender Series shot.

“I was super relaxed for that [Belgaroui] fight,” Tulio said. “I was like, ‘I’ll go for it. He’s good, but I train really hard too.’ I knew he had never fought anyone like me. I went for it, respecting his history, but with a good strategy, and was able to find some holes in his game.”

Tulio said he had “the worst pre-fight month in my life” when he faced Belgaroui, but now returns better prepared to fight Duclos at Tuesday’s card in Las Vegas.

“He’s tough, but it’s whole different story,” Tulio said. “He’s a popular YouTuber, you know? It’s a different audience but he’s very famous, and he’s good. I’m expecting a difficult fight. I’m not overlooking him only because I fought a decorated kickboxer like Yousri before. But I’m going for the knockout now. A knockout or a submission.”

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After another night of exciting fights, the UFC has four new fighters joining its ranks, along with a few others receiving special consideration.

On Tuesday night, the third episode of season eight of Contender Series took place in Las Vegas at the UFC APEX and after five fights, UFC CEO Dana White awarded contracts to Andrey Pulyaev, Bogdan Grad, Marco Tulio, and Malcolm Wellmaker. That wasn’t all though.

Despite losing to Grad, White gave Michael Aswell a special shoutout as someone who will receive a call for any future short-notice opportunities, and he also got creative with the controversial decision in the opening matchup between Jack Duffy and Nick Piccininni, suggesting a rebooking of the fight for later this season.

Pulyaev battles past Anderson

Andrey Pulyaev fought for the first time outside of Russia on Tuesday and it appears that the Vegas air agrees with him because the 26-year-old put on the best performance of his career when he outlasted Liam Anderson in the main event.

Pulyaev showed extremely effective kickboxing right from the jump, tagging Anderson with both kicks and jabs at range, and then landing nasty hooks when Anderson came inside. As the fight dragged on, Anderson was able to score some takedowns to battle back, but Pulyaev was equal to the grappling and ultimately won a unanimous decision and earned a UFC contract.

Grad goes to war with Aswell

After falling short against Tom Nolan last year in Contender Series, Bogdan Grad made the most of his second chance, putting on one of the best fights in Contender Series history with Michael Aswell.

Grad and Aswell went toe-to-toe in a battle of wills, with Aswell’s straight boxing playing a perfect foil to Grad’s aggression and power punches. After 15 minutes, both men were bloodied and beaten, and Grad eked out a split decision. Truly though, there were no losers in this fight as afterward, Dana White announced that for their incredible scrap, both fighters would be paid their show and win purses, along with a special fight bonus and a UFC contract for Grad, and Aswell wasn’t left out in the cold as Dana White said he would be the first call if someone falls out of any upcoming fights.

Tulio spins to victory over Duclos

In 2023, Marco Tulio made his Contender Series debut and picked up a win by unanimous decision, plus an edict from Dana White to go out and get better. On Tuesday, Tulio showed he did that just, finishing Matthieu Duclos with a nasty spinning back kick and punches.

Tulio came out aggressive early but Duclos proved equal to it early, battling back in a competitive round. But in the second, Tulio kept the pressure on and landed one of the most brutal spinning kicks you will ever see to the liver, immediately incapacitating Duclos. A few follow-up punches sealed the deal and got Tulio his shot in the UFC.

Wellmaker flatlines Bramhald

Malcolm Wellmaker promised a first-round starching, and he delivered just that, icing Adam Bramhald in under three minutes.

The undefeated prospect out of Augusta, GA came out and put it on Adam Bramhald with low kicks and a snappy jab. As a result, Bramhald got a bit reckless to close the distance and when he did, Wellmaker slept him right a devastating right hand counter that left no doubt as to whether or not he would get a contract from the UFC.

Piccininni outlasts Duffy

A three-time NCAA Division 1 All-American in wrestling, Nick Piccininni came in to Contender Series with high expectations given his pedigree, but he had his hands full, grinding out a split decision win.

Despite being a big underdog, Jack Duffy came out firing against Piccininni with low kicks and a super active guard when Piccininni did go to the wrestling. But after a tough opening round, Piccininni managed to have more success with the grappling, scoring takedowns and getting to the back repeatedly. In the end, the judges gave Piccininni the decision, but Dana White did not agree, so instead of offering any contracts, he offered to run this fight back on episode 10 of this season, if both fighters agree.

Check out the DWCS results below.

Andrey Pulyaev def. Liam Anderson via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Bogdan Grad def. Michael Aswell via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)

Marco Tulio def. Matthieu Duclos via TKO (spinning back kick and punches) — Round 2, 2:38

Malcolm Wellmaker def. Adam Bramhald via knockout — Round 1, 2:29

Nick Piccininni def. Jack Duffy via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

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