winning a unanimous decision<\/a> over Cory Sandhagen in the UFC 320 co-main event. It was Dvalishvili\u2019s 14th consecutive win overall, a stretch that includes victories against much of the current contender line.<\/p>\nSo why isn\u2019t Dvalishvili considering a featherweight move and potential superfight with Alexander Volkanovski?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my division,\u201d Dvalishvili said at the evening\u2019s post-fight press conference. \u201cI\u2019m comfortable here. I don\u2019t want to try and go up and make a mess because I don\u2019t want to be without an invite. Like if somebody shows up at [Aljamain Sterling\u2019s] wedding tomorrow, I would crush his face in, we would be mad. \u2026 I\u2019m comfortable here. I want to be my division\u2019s champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have respect for all these guys, especially my brother Aljamain Sterling, Volkanovski, I don\u2019t want to fight these guys. I\u2019m good here. I don\u2019t know, we\u2019ll see. So far, I have next plan to fight Petr Yan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dvalishvili waited his turn to step into the bantamweight championship picture when Sterling held that title from 2021-2023 and he prefers to avoid that potential conflict of interest again. Besides, as far as he\u2019s concerned, he still has a long way to go to establish his legacy at 135 pounds.<\/p>\n
Even hearing that UFC CEO Dana White referred to him as the greatest bantamweight of all-time hasn\u2019t changed Dvalishvili\u2019s plans or perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it\u2019s nice to hear from the boss,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cI appreciate him, even if maybe I don\u2019t agree with that. I mean, I\u2019m not sure about that. But Dana White says these kinds of words to me, it means a lot and I\u2019m grateful for UFC and for Dana White, of course, the job they\u2019re doing and all the opportunities I\u2019m given by UFC, I\u2019m grateful for that. I\u2019m thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what he thinks he has to do to claim undisputed GOAT status in his division, Dvalishili isn\u2019t sure, but he likes the idea of at least being in that conversation when his career is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have two older brothers,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cMy second brother, he was a pilot 17 years in Georgian army, one of the helicopters. They have an expression like this: \u2018You don\u2019t say I\u2019m a pilot until you retire and you\u2019re sitting with your grandkids and you talk about it after. Before, you keep landing.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m a fighter. I\u2019m never going to say I\u2019m the GOAT. I\u2019ll keep getting better, I\u2019ll keep landing, I\u2019ll keep grinding, because this is MMA. You have to be humble, otherwise you will get humbled if you get cocky. So I\u2019m 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, \u2018You know what? One day I was GOAT.\u2019 But now, I don\u2019t consider myself the GOAT because I keep getting better. I\u2019m still a student in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merab Dvalishvili has just about cleared out the bantamweight division, but he\u2019s more interested in going for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-192059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}