{"id":153403,"date":"2025-09-18T20:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T20:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/153403\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T20:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T20:56:07","slug":"merab-dvalishvili-explains-why-hes-rooting-for-mario-bautista-against-umar-nurmagomedov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/153403\/","title":{"rendered":"Merab Dvalishvili explains why he&#8217;s rooting for Mario Bautista against Umar Nurmagomedov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili is hoping Mario Bautista defeats Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 321.<\/p>\n<p>Bautista<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/mario-bautista-predicts-title-shot-if-he-defeats-umar-nurmagomedov-at-ufc-321\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> is taking on<\/a> Nurmagomedov in a No. 1 contender bout, as the winner should get a title shot. Although Nurmagomedov has a bigger name and following, Dvalishvili says he is actually rooting for Bautista as he wants a fresh matchup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope Bautista whoops Umar\u2019s ass,\u201d Dvalishvili told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ATXvSLWHcQo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MMA Junkie<\/a>. \u201cI will fight Bautista next because Bautista is a good fighter. He has a good winning streak, he beat a lot of good guys, and he\u2019s the most deserving guy. Bautista\u2019s cousin\u2019s name is not Khabib. That\u2019s why he needs a nine-fight winning streak to maybe fight for the belt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people can get a title fight after a six-fight win streak, fighting nobodies, without ranked opponents. So yeah, Bautista could be next or there are some other fights in our division, and after that, we will have more contenders in our weight class,\u201d Dvalishvili added.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an interesting comment from Dvalishvili, who wants to fight a new name and a fresh contender. He beat Nurmagomedov back in January, so the champ is hoping to face Bautista, whom he hasn\u2019t fought before.<\/p>\n<p>But before Merab Dvalishvili can face the winner of that fight, he will need to beat Cory Sandhagen at UFC 320 in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>Merab Dvalishvili eyes KO win over Cory Sandhagen<\/p>\n<p>Before Dvalishvili can face the winner of Bautista-Nurmagomedov, he will need to get past Sandhagen.<\/p>\n<p>Although Dvalishvili is a sizable betting favorite, he believes the fight is harder than some think. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/merab-dvalishvili-shares-surprising-goal-for-cory-sandhagen-fight-at-ufc-320\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he does expect to KO<\/a> Sandhagen to defend his belt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking for the knockout because I\u2019m working on my striking, you know,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cThis fight is mostly going to go on the feet, and of course I\u2019m going to exchange some punches with him, and that\u2019s the goal. But, at the same time, it\u2019s an MMA fight. We have to be ready for everything, and I won\u2019t be surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Merab Dvalishvili is 20-4 as a pro and coming off a submission win over Sean O\u2019Malley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili is hoping Mario Bautista defeats Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 321. Bautista is taking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-153403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}