{"id":733312,"date":"2026-06-13T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/733312\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T02:49:09","slug":"merab-dvalishvili-aiemann-zahabi-could-emerge-as-new-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/733312\/","title":{"rendered":"Merab Dvalishvili: Aiemann Zahabi could emerge as new contender"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 Former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili<\/a> will be keeping a close eye on a couple of fights at UFC Freedom 250, but the one that he has the most interest in involves a former opponent.<\/p>\n

Fellow former bantamweight titleholder Sean O’Malley<\/a> steps into the octagon on the White House lawn against Aiemann Zahabi in an important fight for the division. Dvalishvili (21-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) is expected to compete for the title next in a trilogy bout against champion Petr Yan<\/a>, but the winner between O’Malley (19-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) and Zahabi (14-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) will be on the shortlist for consideration.<\/p>\n

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Dvalishvili will be cheering on O’Malley, the man he defeated to become champion, but won’t be disappointed if Zahabi gets his hand raised Sunday.<\/p>\n

“I always root for my past opponents,” Dvalishvili told MMA Junkie. “Like, I’m always rooting for Sean O’Malley now, but Zahabi is not easy opponent. He has a great seven-fight win streak. Like I said, I’m rooting for Sean, if he wins, it’s good, but if Zahabi wins, also it won’t be bad for the division. He will have an eight-fight win streak and he will fight the winner of me and Petr Yan. So, he could be my next opponent. I’m excited to watch this fight.”<\/p>\n

O’Malley was extremely confident in his chances of getting the win on the South Lawn, as he likened Zahabi to a punching bag during pre-fight media day. Dvalishvili knows all about O’Malley’s trash talk, but doesn’t expect the fight to be as easy as “Sugar” thinks.<\/p>\n

“It won’t be this much easy against Zahabi, but he can win,” Dvalishvili said. “I think Sean can win this fight. If not, then I tell you, we will have a new contender in the division, and hopefully I can fight him next.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ex-champ weighs-in on UFC White House’s Sean O’Malley vs. Aiemann Zahabi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 Former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili will be keeping a close eye on a couple of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[75376,49,48,641,21903,638,18235,152078,82,640,206958,108987],"class_list":["post-733312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-aiemann-zahabi","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-merab-dvalishvili","tag-mma","tag-petr-yan","tag-sean-o39malley","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-freedom-250","tag-zahabi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733312","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=733312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}