Merab Dvalishvili’s coach has insisted that the bantamweight champion was never going to pull out of rematching Sean O’Malley – even with a broken toe.
Dvalishvili just last week showed off that he had broken his pinky toe on his right foot during a training session with just over a fortnight from his UFC 316 rematch with O’Malley. He joked that he would rather ‘cut it off’ than pull out, even though the same injury has cost other fighters in the past.
Around this time last year, Conor McGregor was forced out of his fight with Michael Chandler at UFC 303 due to the exact same injury. The Irishman never returned, although Dvalishvili seems to have history of fighting through similar pain.
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Merab Dvalishvili’s coach plays down impact of broken toe ahead of UFC 316
Luckily for fans who are excited to see bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili return next week, he is powering through his broken toe well. In fact, coach John Wood reckons that it will play little part, with the Georgian known for suffering injuries during fight camps.
“I can’t win with that guy,” Wood told Submission Radio. “I literally leave for a day and something goes wrong. He loves to rile everybody up and the thing is, as much as people think that’s stupid or this or that, he would never post something that’s going to take him out of a fight.
“Guys, if he’s posting something it’s really not that bad and he’s not going to be bothered that bad. I’m sure he broke his toe but every camp every fighter, even Sean O’Malley says it, is banged up and there’s a level of just injuries you go into fights with.
“That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s going to be and that’s the way it always is. It’s just one of those things that obviously Merab likes to post about a little more than everybody else. It’s alright though, he’s all good.”
Merab Dvalishvili’s coach insists toe injury won’t hurt his fighter’s footwork
While the likes of McGregor have previously called off entire fights before for the same injury, it appears that Dvalishvili is a different animal. And when the host asked if it would affect his ability to move around and away from a striker like O’Malley, Wood seemed unfazed.
“Not at all,” he insisted. “It’s one of those things where every injury obviously you’d rather go into camp and be free of, but that just doesn’t happen. Especially the way these guys train with the intensity and frequency that Merab does.
“That’s nothing compared to some of the things we’ve had going into other fights. We’ve obviously talked about how he was banged up going into Umar [Nurmagomedov] but there’s a lot of stuff he doesn’t talk about.
“He’s a guy that has had some massive injuries going into some massive fights before, broken ribs and backs and things that are just completely out of whack. That’s just the way it goes and he’s going to show up no matter what.”