Merab Dvalishvili’s incredible run of title defenses continued on Saturday night as he dominated Cory Sandhagen at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The Georgian champion won the bantamweight belt from Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 at Sphere in September of last year. He made his first defense of the belt in January at UFC 311 against Umar Nurmagomedov, and snuck in a rematch with O’Malley at UFC 317 this summer.
And tonight in Las Vegas, ‘The Machine’ made his third outing of a planned four for the year as he took on fan favorite Sandhagen in the co-main event of UFC 320. He scored an impressive number of takedowns on route to a Unanimous Decision win
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Merab Dvalishvili vs Cory Sandhagen UFC 320 result
From the opening stanza of their ring walk songs, it became clear that Merab Dvalishvili and Cory Sandhagen were ready for action. The champion danced his way into the ring and within seconds was trading blows on the feet with his challenger.
After round one, consensus from viewers was that the challenger had got off to a solid start and earned the points with impressive footwork and counter striking. Dvalishvili kept the action going, but it didn’t draw in his rival all too much.
The champion made sure to leave little doubt in the second as he came out guns blazing and dropped his challenger on the feet with relentless pressure. Somehow Sandhagen survived, but it was arguably a 10-8 after a disaster round in his challenge, after having been taken down nine times in two rounds.
Takedown number ten of 22 efforts arrived within seconds of the third as the champion’s relentless pressure continued back and he took control of proceedings.Rounds four and five were much of the same and he won a unanimous decision.