Though it was only 10 months ago, January feels like it belongs to a different era for Umar Nurmagomedov when he gets to comparing his own trajectory with that of UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili. Like a bowstring that’s been pulled back and let go, Merab has shot his way through history, fighting three times since the beginning of the year and with a fourth fight already lined up against Petr Yan at UFC 323 in December.
It’s the most condensed title defense run we’ve ever seen in UFC.
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Meanwhile Nurmagomedov, the man who Merab beat to kick off the year, has been on the sidelines waiting to rinse the bad taste from his mouth. He fractured his hand at UFC 311 in that fight with Dvalishvili, yet still managed to make it a competitive battle. As in, he didn’t get skunked on the scorecards, which came back 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46 in Merab’s favor.
Of all of those who stood before the great Merab Dvalishvili in 2025, Umar Nurmagomedov came closest to breaking the machine.
That’s one of the reasons why Dvalishvili is such a fiery talking point for Nurmagomedov as he makes his return this weekend in Abu Dhabi, even though it isn’t even Merab in his immediate crosshairs. It just so happens he’s facing Mario Bautista at UFC 321 on Saturday, who is, as the old cliché goes, a whole different kettle of fish.
“My relationship with Merab before fight, after fight, nothing changed,” Nurmagomedov says. “For me, Merab is Merab, and I don’t have anything personal with him. And if tomorrow he’ll say, ‘I’m retired,’ I will not even talk about him. But just because of this belt, we’re talking about each other, I think.”
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These things are said as qualifiers, as the man with the fuzzy papakha and the bantamweight belt out there doing the extended victory lap still very much haunts his thoughts.
“Of course, I want to beat Merab,” Nurmagomedov says. “I want to take his legacy. I want to beat him, smash him, and it is going to happen.”
Not that anything in this sport is guaranteed. Bautista is a dangerous passageway back to Merab, in that he’s won eight straight fights in the bantamweight ranks, including a declarative victory over Jose Aldo in late 2024. He was a solid underdog in his latest fight against the UFC debutant Patchy Mix, yet he methodically — and defiantly — dominated the action to win a unanimous decision.
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In other words, looking past Bautista hasn’t exactly panned out for anyone. And it won’t serve Nurmagomedov if the ultimate goal is to get back to Dvalishvili, either. He will need to show up and do work.
“He’s a very good striker,” he says of Bautista. “I don’t see even one fight where he attack, take somebody down and do some chokes. I don’t see any fights like that, I didn’t find. But strike is very well. His strike and his movement is very well, he all the time moving on the legs, show fake, punch. He’s good. I like his style.”
When asked if he thinks he’s fighting below his status in the rankings, Nurmagomedov shakes the notion off.
“To be honest, no — right now [Bautista is] 8-0 in UFC. It’s good results and I think it deserve to fight with me,” he says. “And who else? Everybody was like ‘no,’ or they injured, or they have booking already fights. I think it is nice striker and I think we’re going to show good fight.”
Mario Bautista’s eight-fight UFC win streak includes upsets over Patchy Mix and Jose Aldo.
(Ed Mulholland via Getty Images)
So it’s Nurmagomedov and Bautista, meeting in a blistering hot sector of the Middle East that the UFC once dubbed “Fight Island.”
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It’s been a strange year in MMA. We’ve seen some top names take big losses along the way (Alex Pereira), some vanish from our sightlines completely (Shavkat Rakhmonov), and some make light work of UFC standards (Ilia Topuria). We’ve also seen the sheen of invincibility turn interesting colors when a champion is confronted with the right opposition. Paul Hughes was thisfreakingclose to beating Umar’s younger brother, Usman Nurmagomedov.
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And we’ve actually seen a Nurmagomedov lose. That was Umar, who before Merab had never failed to have his hand raised in 18 pro fights. A Nurmagomedov losing to anyone is like the Harlem Globetrotters losing to the Washington Generals. It doesn’t happen.
It just doesn’t happen.
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“I think, brother, you know — in the team and around — life not finishing in MMA career,” Nurmagomedov says when asked about how he handled it. “And everybody try to do their best. I did everything what I can in the cage, [whether it] happen or not happen. And it’s not the time where we can talk and cry, regret. It’s time to come back stronger. We did this, we’re going to see where we did mistake. We have to go out, we have to be better, and work, work, work, work, work and become a champion.”
Should he come back stronger on Saturday’s pay-per-view and resume his death march through the bantamweight ranks, he might have added intrigue this time through. The last time he made his way to Merab, he was coming off a widely seen beatdown of Cory Sandhagen on ABC and came into his fight with the champ as the betting favorite. Some saw Nurmagomedov as the one to beat.
This time?
Should Dvalishvili beat Yan in the rematch, as many think he will, this time Umar can arrive as perhaps the only viable/visible threat to Merab’s throne. The only man fighting in the ranks who has a believable shot to dethrone him, especially if he’s operating with two functioning hands for the full 25 minutes.
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It’s not the first thing on his mind, which right now is solving Bautista. But it’s sitting there right behind it.
“I think secret to beat him,” Nurmagomedov says, adjusting his seat and leaning in, “you have to take him down. You have to pressure, take him down first, and other [than that] you have to be with good defense.
“But for beat him, I need do better.”
