Merab Dvalishvili continued to separate himself from the rest of the pack in his latest title defense.
For the third time this year, Dvalishvili was able to implement his relentless style to keep hold of the bantamweight title on Saturday night.
Cory Sandhagen, who many believed would pose an interesting challenge to ‘The Machine’, was only able to win the first round on two of the three scorecards before the champion took over.
We’ve seen some incredibly dominant grapplers achieve great success inside the Octagon.
However, even Khamzat Chimaev’s one-sided win over Dricus du Plessis can’t match up to the bantamweight king’s performance in one area.
Merab Dvalishvili records the most takedowns in a UFC title fight after boosting his stats
Ahead of UFC 320, Merab Dvalishvili led the way for the most takedowns in the history of the promotion at 97.
Dvalishvili previously said that he wouldn’t specifically target the 100-takedowns landed mark in an interview with MMA Junkie, though he believed that it would come naturally.
In the end, ‘The Machine’ absolutely smashed through this untouched milestone after he admitted that this didn’t enter his mind during the fight.
Dvalishvili told the media in the post-fight press conference that he purposefully went for takedowns in order to continue boosting his numbers.
“It was some moments during the fight, I just kept taking [him] down because I’m like, ‘Oh, this is another for my takedown records’. I was just doing it because of the records.”
In the end, after increasing his total to a staggering 117 takedowns, Dvalishvili ended up breaking a different record in the process.
His performance at UFC 320 will now be in the promotion’s history books as the most takedowns in a single UFC title bout at 20.
| Fighter with most takedowns in a single UFC title fight | Opponent | Event | Total takedowns |
| Merab Dvalishvili | Cory Sandhagen | UFC 320 | 20 |
| Sean Sherk | Hermes Franca | UFC 73 | 16 |
| Demetrious Johnson | Kyoji Horiguchi | UFC 186 | 14 |
| Demetrious Johnson | John Moraga | UFC on Fox 8 | 12 |
| Khamzat Chimaev | Dricus du Plessis | UFC 319 | 12 |
| Georges St-Pierre | Dan Hardy | UFC 111 | 11 |
| Cain Velasquez | Junior dos Santos | UFC 155 | 11 |
Merab Dvalishvili is now two fights away from tying a UFC legend’s record
Merab Dvalishvili’s relentless grappling has proven to be incredibly difficult to stop.
As a result of his ability to consistently implement his game plan, ‘The Machine’ has produced one of the greatest win streaks in UFC history.
In fact, he’s now only two wins away from equalling Anderson Silva’s iconic record for the most consecutive wins inside the Octagon.
| UFC fighter with the most consecutive wins | Total consecutive wins |
| Anderson Silva | 16 |
| Islam Makhachev | 15 |
| Kamaru Usman | 15 |
| Merab Dvalishvili | 14 |
Not to mention that Dvalishvili wants to take a step closer to this at the next available opportunity, having registered his interest in fighting in December.