Merab Dvalishvili Knows It Will Be ‘Long Night’ at UFC 311

While tensions have been rising between Umar Nurmagomedov and Merab Dvalishvili ahead of their UFC 311 bout, the No. 1 contender doesn’t believe he has ever disrespected the reigning bantamweight champion.

“It’s a little bit emotional,” Nurmagomedov said in an interview with the UFC. “I don’t think he is an angry person. I don’t think he is a bad person. I really don’t know what he is talking disrespect … I talk about the fight. I said, Hey Merab, your title is awaiting me. You don’t mention my name. It looks insane. Everybody talked about that, not just me. When they pushed him to fight…and he doesn’t say nothing.”

Dvalishvili initially was reluctant to face Nurmagomedov because he felt the Dagestani hadn’t done enough to earn the title shot. He has since claimed that Nurmagomedov is too “cocky” for his liking. According to Nurmagomedov, there might be an ulterior motive behind Dvalishvili’s initial reluctance.

“I think he just wants to fight with a real guy he can beat. It doesn’t mean I’m really going to 100 percent go inside the cage and smash him, no. He knows other guys, he will beat. With me, it’s going to be hard,” Nurmagomedov said. “That’s why he’s trying to be a champion for a long time, and he wants to fight with [Sean] O’Malley, with Petr Yan, or someone else because these guys, easy money. Me, no. For me, he has to go deep waters. With me it’s going to be a long night. I will not give him takedowns. He will not control me.

“I have good skills, striking skills, and I can make for him a lot of problems. That’s why, but when we go inside the cage, I will not think he’s scared of me. I will know that this is a man who will try to beat me, I will try to smash him, and it’s going to be a battle. What I understand is he doesn’t want to take a risky fight. He can beat me, it can happen. It’s not going to break me. I will be same Umar. Fight is fight. Everybody can lose. …If we’re talking about scared, I just think he doesn’t want to take risk, hard fight.”

Even though the contracts are signed, Nurmagomedov will not be surprised if Dvalishvili withdraws from the fight between now and Jan. 18.

“I will not [be] surprised, and nobody will [be] surprised,” Nurmagomedov said “Even right now I saw commentary or on Twitter they said he will pull out, but he never pulled out before. I hope he will not, and the fight is going to happen.”