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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
MMA Junkie Staff

Video: Was Dana White too harsh on Merab Dvalishvili for posting cut before UFC title fight?

Dana White was in awe of the “next-level stupid” move by Merab Dvalishvili to post himself getting stitched up around the eye less than three weeks out from his UFC 306 title fight with Sean O’Malley.

Although Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) and his team assured it was no big deal, White was strongly adamant that it was a foolish move for the upcoming bantamweight title challenger to lay out a target for O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) going into the Sept. 14 headliner of Noche UFC, which takes place at Sphere in Las Vegas and airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+.

White identified this as a UFC problem. He credited boxing for doing a better job of keeping injuries and training issues in-house, and criticized essentially his entire roster – and most specifically Dvalishvili – after the footage created a brief scare about the fight being off.

Was the UFC CEO on point with his frustrations, or did he go too far in publicly scolding Dvalishvili?

That was a topic of discussion on the latest episode of “Spinning Back Clique” with panelists Nolan King, Mike Bohn and Matt Wells, who joined host “Gorgeous” George Garcia. Check out the segment above, or watch the entire episode from Aug. 26 below.

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