Roman Dolidze continues his rise in the UFC this Saturday in the UFC Vegas 104 main event as he takes on Marvin Vettori.
After an extremely close clash between Roman Dolidze and Marvin Vettori at UFC 286 in 2023, which was scored controversially, the promotion matched the two middleweights back up, this time for a main event.
Since their first meeting in which Vettori was handed the decision win, he has only fought once, losing against fellow contender, Jared Cannonier. ‘The Caucasian’ on the other hand has fought three times, with his most recent fight having come against Kevin Holland at UFC 307.
The fight ended in controversy after Holland’s corner pulled him out of the fight after suffering what seemed to be a rib injury.
Roman Dolidze gave up professional football career to pursue MMA
Although he is ranked number 11 in the middleweight division, Dolidze is still extremely young in his MMA career having only started training when he was 28 years old.
The Georgian grew up playing soccer and even competed professionally before pursuing a career in grappling after watching old PRIDE events.
“I was a football player, a goalkeeper, and I liked where I was going, I loved football very much but I didn’t reach the levels where I wanted to be,” Dolidze began to explain in an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow.
“I was watching PRIDE, I didn’t know back then that PRIDE didn’t exist anymore, I still thought people were fighting there… It was something new and interesting for me. I found out Fedor Emilianenko trained Combat Sambo and I found a Combat Sambo gym near my university.
“I thought it would be like PRIDE because I had no understanding of what it was. When I went to training, it was not the same, it was not like PRIDE… I didn’t like it,” Dolidze continued.
Fortunately, the Georgian became friends with someone at the gym who trained jiu-jitsu, which led to ‘The Caucasian’ beginning jiu-jitsu training. He went on to win several championships after just a few months training, building a name for himself.
A few years later, a new MMA promotion called WWFC came to Ukraine and was looking for prospects from the area to compete.
“When somebody would ask if I wanted to fight, I would say, ‘No, these guys are beating each other to the face, I don’t want that’ but they offered me a good contract which was interesting for me. I agreed to the contract and I was 28 years old when I fought my first pro fight,” Dolidze continued.
Dolidze went on to make a name for himself and is now close to UFC title contention
Fortunately for the MMA fanbase, Dolidze took the risk and continued his MMA career in WWFC before earning a UFC contract at 5-0.
The 185lb division is in somewhat of a transitional period at the moment, with the likes of Israel Adesanya, Sean Strickland, and Robert Whittaker all coming off losses, still ranked in the top five.
And with that, the 36-year-old finds himself extremely close to middleweight title contention and a win over former title challenger, Vettori, in the UFC Vegas 104 main event could put him just one step away.