{"id":214110,"date":"2025-10-15T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/214110\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T02:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:00:09","slug":"cory-sandhagen-downplays-merab-dvalishvili-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/214110\/","title":{"rendered":"Cory Sandhagen downplays Merab Dvalishvili win"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been exactly 10 days (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025) since Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Merab Dvalishvili, tied the record for most consecutive 135-pound title defenses, dominating<\/a> Cory Sandhagen en route to a unanimous decision win<\/a> at UFC 320<\/a> inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the 20 takedowns is kind of funny to me, because I think that if you watch that fight, you\u2019re not going to be like, \u2018Wow, Merab\u2019s wrestling was super impressive\u2019 because what\u2019s a takedown without any control?\u201d Sandhagen said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of just, like, mat returns don\u2019t hurt. You know what I mean? Like, it\u2019s not like he was picking me up and slamming me \u2014 if you just bump me down to my knees and I just have to get back up, that to me, is not like a quote, unquote, MMA takedown. Maybe it scores points in wrestling, but I mean, you\u2019re not doing any damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandhagen then reflected on the grinding pace of the fight and how surprised he was by Dvalishvili\u2019s relentless approach<\/p>\n

\u201cI know who\u2019s working harder in those positions, and Merab,\u201d Sandhagen added. \u201cLike, it\u2019s way harder to hold someone down and continue to mat return someone than it is to continue to get up. I was actually really surprised that he was really adamant about staying on those body locks for so long. In a lot of his other fights, he\u2019ll kind of fight for that a little bit, but then let go and start punching. And I was kind of expecting him to do that, but he made me fight his grip the whole time. He milked a lot of clock doing that. It\u2019s a gamey way to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGamey\u201d or not, Dvalishvili imposed his will for five rounds and nearly knocked out Sandhagen in the second stanza, while cruising to another dominant title defense. The bitter loss marked Sandhagen\u2019s second failed bid for the belt.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the 33-year-old contender isn\u2019t discouraged. Sandhagen hopes to return to action in early 2026 and already has his sights set on a clash with former champion, Sean O\u2019Malley \u2014 something \u201cSuga\u201d himself appears eager for as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been exactly 10 days (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025) since Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Merab Dvalishvili,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,51993,40762,785,85,117794,1396,46234],"class_list":{"0":"post-214110","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-full-results","12":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc-320-ankalaev-vs-pereira-2-start-time","16":"tag-ufc-news","17":"tag-ufc-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214110","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=214110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}