Following his title defense at UFC 316, Merab Dvalishvili has returned to Georgia to celebrate with his fans.
This past Saturday at UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey, Merab Dvalishvili defended his title for a second time when he once again dominated Sean O’Malley on the way to a fourth round submission.
With his dominant win, ‘The Machine’ overtook both Jon Jones and Ilia Topuria in the pound-for-pound rankings, now sitting at number two behind Islam Makhachev.
Immediately after his fight, UFC boss Dana White dropped a hint regarding Merab’s next opponent, claiming a rematch against Umar Nurmagomedov would be ‘interesting’.
Dvalishvili swarmed by fans in Georgia during open-top bus parade
Following UFC 316, ‘The Machine’ claimed that he would like to fight at least two more times this year, which would break the record for the most title defenses in a calendar year.
Although the Georgian lives and trains out of Vegas, he still represents his nation every single time he steps into the Octagon.
And in an attempt to give back to his huge Georgian fanbase, Dvalishvili returned to Georgia earlier this week for an open-top bus parade where he showed off his UFC belt.
During the open-top parade, the bus was absolutely swarmed with raucous Georgian fans who attempted to show their support for their UFC bantamweight champion.
“Don’t worry guys, this is how we do it in Georgia, let’s go!” Dvalishvili said as motorcycles and cars followed beeping their horns relentlessly.
Fan wakes up from surgery to find out O’Malley lost to Dvalishvili
Despite Merab’s growing popularity in the sport, ‘Suga’ Sean still remains as one of the biggest stars in the promotion because of his eccentric personality and sensational striking.
One fan of O’Malley unfortunately underwent surgery during the fight and didn’t wake up until after the fight when he was told by his Mom that O’Malley had suffered another loss.
“I hate Merab,” the fan said as he was clearly on in pain from surgery.