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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Merab Dvalishvili had to let his quirky sense of humor shine even though he was in the middle of the most important fight of his career.

At the end of the second round of his UFC 306 main event clash with bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley, Dvalishvili confused everyone by playfully kissing O’Malley’s back as the two grappled against the fence.

Watch the bizarre exchange below.

Dvalishvili then released O’Malley and casually walked off, despite their still being time left on the clock. O’Malley made him pay, chasing him down and cracking him with a punch before the bell sounded. Adding insult to injury, referee Herb Dean then admonished Dvalishvili for his bizarre behavior.

In the end, it made no difference to Dvalishvili’s fortunes, as he went on to win a dominant decision to claim the bantamweight title. Later in the evening, Dvalishvili was asked about that memorable moment.

“So I grab his neck and he has 10 seconds left,” Dvalishvili said at the UFC 306 post-fight press conference. “I know he can wait and he’s not going to sleep or tap from this and I wanted to make just a little fun of him and make him—I don’t hate the guy, just make fun of him, but at same time, give him a little kiss to show that I’m dominant. I control this fight, I break you. That’s why I was kissing him.

“But I had too much fun there and I guess I [lost track of time], but when I let go, he followed me and he punched the back of my head and I protect myself again. I said, ‘Referee, again, I’m sorry, referee. I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t the only time that Dean had to talk to Dvalishvili.

At the very beginning of the fight, the action came to a pause as Dean had to address both Dvalishvili and O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch for excessive conversation. Dvalishvili claims that Welch was simply talking too much and he was inclined to respond.

“I was in and I’m fighting, I’m a professional fighter, I’m focused,” Dvalishvili said. “It never happened to me. I never pay attention to the other corner, but Tim’s voice, it was very familiar because he was doing the same thing [when Aljamain Sterling fought O’Malley at UFC 292] … He was doing the same thing, he was doing very disrespectful, ‘Merab, you’ve got to go,’ he was talking shit at me.

“I tell him, ‘Stop it,’ and nobody was telling him to stop. He just kept doing this. If you do the same thing in basketball or soccer, they will disqualify you, but I guess here not. But I told the referee, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m a professional, that’s my job, but I said, ‘I’m sorry’ and after I guess he stopped it. … After, I don’t care.”

UFC CEO Dana White was also asked about the main event chicanery and he essentially dismissed it as Dvalishvili being Dvalishvili.

“What happened was Merab and O’Malley’s corner were screaming at each other the whole beginning of the fight,” White said. “They were yelling at each other back and forth and then Herb Dean stepped in and told them to knock it off.

“Then the kissing on the back and the standing up and walking away before the bell, that I have no idea. Merab does some shit. It was weird but not shocking.”

Up next for Dvalishvili appears to be undefeated contender Umar Nurmagomedov. The Dagestani fighter was in attendance at Sphere in Las Vegas, but no official plans have been made for the two to fight yet and Dvalishvili would actually like to see Nurmagomedov face one more test before being granted a title shot.

“Umar, he’s OK,” Dvalishvili said. “But I’m telling you guys, from the top 15, he only won one fight, and that was Cory Sandhagen, and we all saw what Aljamain Sterling did against Cory Sandhagen. Made him sleep in the first round.”

Asked who Nurmagomedov should fight to become the No. 1 contender, Dvalishvili answered, “Maybe against Petr Yan.”

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First Challenger?
| BJPenn.com

Pereira believes Jones is not long for active competition and would rather get a few rounds in with the GOAT in the gym than try to fight him in in the cage.

UFC 306 went down at the Sphere on Saturday night and it was a star-studded affair with plenty of combat sports legends and celebrities in attendance. In the front row alone we had UFC champions Jon Jones and Alex Pereira sitting next to each other, and the two men clearly enjoyed their time hanging out and talking.

In various interviews with media outlets, Pereira discussed his time with Jones and how the two might end up training together for Jon’s UFC 309 scrap with Stipe Miocic on November 16th after “Poatan” fights Khalil Rountree Jr. at UFC 307 on October 5th.

“It was awesome to meet him, he’s a very nice guy,” Pereira told TNT Sports through his translator. “We talked, we talked about training together. People talk about me fighting Jon Jones, going up to the heavyweight division, but I don’t know if maybe he have just one fight left. So for me to worry about my weight class is something that’s maybe too much. Right now, maybe we’re going to start training together.”

“We’ve been talking a little bit about training together for a long time, but I think now it’s going to happen,” he told Full Send MMA. “His fight’s going to be in November. every time you leave a fight it takes a week or two to recover from small injuries. But I think I’ll have enough time to go over there.”

“Today I saw him more fit than we last saw him, he looks really good and I want to grab his experience. People talk about us fighting, but people talk about him fighting one time, one or twice more. I don’t know if I’ll be able to share the cage with him, but I want to get the experience of training with him.”

This isn’t the first time Jones retiring after the Stipe fight has come up — when “Bones” returned to challenge for the vacant heavyweight title it was common knowledge amongst his training partners that he planned on winning the belt, defending it against Stipe — statistically the best UFC heavyweight champion ever — and then retiring with that extra juice on his legacy.

After sitting out a year with a pectoral injury, is Jones still sticking to that plan? With a high profile fight in November to hype up, he’s being a lot more tight lipped about the possibility of retirement. But Pereira clearly thinks it’s likely enough that he’s not even bothering to hype up a fight. Instead, he’d rather train with the legend while he has the chance, which tells you something about the kind of fighter he is.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC 306: “O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.

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Diego Lopes experienced the best and the worst of fight night at UFC 306.

The featherweight contender’s own bout couldn’t have gone better as he won a convincing unanimous decision over the highly ranked Brian Ortega on Saturday’s main card. Unfortunately for Lopes, he had to deal with a major disappointment as one fight later he was in Alexa Grasso’s corner serving as a coach for her flyweight championship loss to Valentina Shevchenko.

Grasso lost a listless decision to Shevchenko, with her poor performance bringing an anticlimactic end to her trilogy with “Bullet.” At the evening’s post-fight press conference, Lopes couldn’t pinpoint exactly what went wrong for his teammate.

“I think Alexa froze and wasn’t in the fight tonight,” Lopes said via a Spanish translator. “Valentina didn’t do much either. What did she do? She just took her to the ground and tried to control her there. Didn’t do any damage, she didn’t do anything either.”

It was obvious by Lopes’ demeanor that he muted his own celebration at the post-fight press conference in the wake of Grasso’s championship defeat. However, it wasn’t just seeing the flyweight title change hands that soured Lopes’ mood.

Touted as a celebration of Mexican Independence Day weekend, UFC 306 saw a number of Mexican-born fighters fall flat, including Daniel Zellhuber, Irene Aldana, and the heavily favored Yazmin Jauregui. Lopes would have loved to have seen his fellow countrymen share in his success.

“I’m a little bit upset about all the Mexicans who lost the fight tonight,” Lopes said. “Obviously, I’m happy with my win, but I wanted more Mexicans to win. But this is the toughest sport in the world. You can’t always get what you want, so yeah, I’m a bit upset about that.”

Lopes has no regrets about having to rush to prepare for Grasso’s title fight after his own bout concluded and he looks forward to going over Grasso’s performance when the post-UFC 306 madness has settled down.

“I really want to support everyone from my team, so I made sure I wanted to be there for Alexa,” Lopes said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win tonight and I wasn’t able to speak with her because I was brought up here for all my media commitments, but I’m looking forward to speaking with her after this.”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Jake Paul wasn’t going to be denied at UFC 306.

The influencer and boxer, who claims he was banned by the UFC over two years ago, put on a special disguise and says he snuck into the historic event at Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday night. As he pointed out in the video below, it’s been awhile since pulled off the kind of hijinks that helped make him famous when he was younger.

UFC CEO Dana White and UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira both walked by Paul, who seemed to have great seats at the memorable event.

After catching the UFC event, Paul headed to Arlington, Texas, on Sunday afternoon and squared off against Mike Tyson with some help from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Paul and Tyson compete in a boxing match at AT&T Stadium on Nov. 15.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts