— Merab “The Machine” Dvalishvili (@MerabDvalishvil)
August 28, 2024
Merab
Dvalishvili thinks posting a picture of a cut on his eyelid
ahead of a title fight wasn’t that big of a deal.
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Dvalishvili is set to challenge Sean O’Malley for the bantamweight
title in the main event at UFC
306 on Sept. 14 at The Sphere in Las Vegas. “The Machine”
recently posted a picture of a cut he suffered in sparring on his
right eyelid, much to the ire of Dana White. White went off on
Dvalishvili during a press conference, deeming it extremely “dumb”
of the Georgian contender to reveal a cut ahead of a title fight.
However, Dvalishvili doesn’t regret any of it, which he claims was
just routine for him. With over three weeks left before the fight
when he suffered the cut, Dvalishvili knew he would be healed up in
no time.
“I never regret what I did,” Dvalishvili told MMAjunkie.com. “I post this because I post
everything on my social media. And it wasn’t big deal because I
have more than three weeks when I got cut, and I know that my cut
will take five days to heal up. And this cut no affect my training,
my sparring, nothing. And as you see, I heal up and everything is
good. When I see Dana was upset, of course I don’t wanna upset Dana
White, UFC or do something like that. But I was very calm and
relaxed because it wasn’t big deal. I don’t regret nothing. This is
who I am, this is what I do and this my life.”
If anything, Dvalishvili believes all the panic he created could
help draw more eyes on his clash against “Sugar.” Dvalishvili
further went on to open the stitches on his cut by himself with a
pair of kitchen scissors at which point White thought “The Machine”
was just “f—ing with” him. Dvalishvili claims opening his own
stitches is also routine for him.
“That’s how I always do,” he said. “I get cut all the time and I
take [out] stitches myself. It was normal for me to just take
stitches out by myself. I realized later it was big scissors. First
when I tried to take stitches out I was trying to take out with a
knife. But then knife wasn’t cutting and it was a little painful.
Then I go inside and I grab the scissors. I’m sorry I don’t have a
small [pair of] scissors. I grab kitchen scissors.”