Scott Fontana

Scott Fontana

MMA

Meet Merab Dvalishvili, the top-flight UFC ‘Machine’ who’s full of life

Ten days out from the biggest fight of his life, while Merab Dvalishvili explains his rationale for a Wednesday social media post aping the distracted boyfriend meme that included a pair of women with the heads of UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and 135-pound contender Deiveson Figueiredo’s mugs shoddily Photoshopped over them, randomly set his phone and his video interview with The Post aside to get examined by a doctor sent by the UFC.

At least the doc had the foresight to have his patient point the camera to the ceiling while the bewildered reporter on the other end of the phone came to the realization of what was happening. Fortunately, Dvalishvili (17-4, four finishes) reports, he does not have a staph infection as some eagle-eyed social media users worried.

All this came minutes after explaining the methodology behind the head-scratching clip Dvalishvili shared of himself clipping his own stitches from the cut, near his eyebrow that he suffered in training, using a pair of house scissors because the knife he was using wasn’t getting the job done.

Merab Dvalishvili, posing with a fan during this summer's UFC X fan expo, will challenge Sean O'Malley for the bantamweight title on Sept. 14.
Merab Dvalishvili, posing with a fan during this summer’s UFC X fan expo, will challenge Sean O’Malley for the bantamweight title on Sept. 14. Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Is there ever a dull moment with Merab?

For a man nicknamed “The Machine,” Dvalishvili is one of the liveliest personalities on the UFC roster. He also might be the best 135-pounder the world, which he’ll get the chance to prove Sept. 14 as one half (with O’Malley) of the UFC 306 championship main event of the ballyhooed debut sports event at The Sphere in Las Vegas,

Already known as a playful trickster in an MMA world often dominated by ugly mudslinging and over-the-top bravado, Dvalishvili lit the first hot foot on O’Malley last May in Newark, N.J., undercutting an intense staredown between then-champ Aljamain Sterling — Dvalishvili’s best buddy — and “Suga” Sean by swiping and donning O’Malley’s red and black-accented jacket.

Two alpha males spitting venom at one another in the middle of a cage, flanked by security teams and coaches, with Dvalishvili smirking and styling in a jacket he scooped off the mat.

Merab is the king of the imps, the pound-for-pound No. 1 mischief-maker.

“We are Georgians. We are like that,” Dvalishvili tells The Post, explaining why he is such a joker. “We are cool people. We like jokes. We like to have fun. That’s who I am.”

Fun clearly is the objective of his promotional efforts for his long-awaited championship challenge. For months, Dvalishvili has put in seemingly as much effort into his comedic social media skits needling O’Malley over his love of smoking pot, endearingly depicting himself as a ladies man (while needling O’Malley) or, lately, gleefully immersing in Mexican culture in preparation for the Noche UFC theming of the pay-per-view event he headlines (and sometimes still mixing in some O’Malley needling, which there always seems time to do).

O’Malley (18-1, 13 finishes), he of the frequently multicolor-dyed hair and colorful wardrobe, isn’t quite as jovial as the Georgian during this promotional buildup. Still sour about his pilfered apparel, perhaps. Or maybe there just ain’t a way to be more full of life while also being a dominant fighter with three consecutive victories over former UFC champions: Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo. That’s one more former UFC titleholder than O’Malley has on his ledger.

But chatter from the champ and his coach pinched a nerve with the cheerful challenger recently when, out of the blue, O’Malley wrote on X, “Are all Georgians runts ?” while intending to tag both Dvalishvili and Ilia Topuria, the UFC featherweight champ of Georgian heritage.

Dvalishvili, none too pleased, shot back a day later a warning that, while all’s fair in “disrespecting” himself, a line was crossed in firing a verbal shot at his countrymen: “You will pay for this when I see you outside of the cage.”

Merab Dvalishvili chats with friend and former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at Longo and Weidman MMA in Garden City.
Merab Dvalishvili chats with friend and former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at Longo and Weidman MMA in Garden City. Stefan Jeremiah

Outside the cage? Dvalishvili assured he’s “not going to do anything stupid before the fight” but, while swearing it’s strictly business, it sure sounded like there’s some personal retribution he’s itching to dish out.

“When you disrespect my country or somebody from my country, you have to pay for it, because I’m ready to die for my country,” says Dvalishvili with a calm sternness not often expressed in media appearances. “I don’t have [anything] personal; it’s only business. I joke with him, and we’re going to fight, and this is going to be fine, but because of his disrespect for my country, he has to pay for it. He has to [be] punished for that.”

Dvalishivili  will save punitive measures for next weekend, then, when Merab sets the spin cycle to run for 25 minutes of, one can only assume, a heavy helping of grueling clinch work and rinse-and-repeat takedowns aiming at taking the pop out of smooth-striking sniper Suga Sean.

As much as Dvalishvili is the clown prince of combat sports outside the cage, he’s a terminator between those eight chain-link walls. The Machine is out there. can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop.

That’s the plan, anyway. During his weekly spot on “The Anik & Florian Podcast,” Dvalishvili’s head coach Ray Longo on Long Island (the fighter spends increasingly more time training in Nevada these days, preferring the climate and abundance of training partners) was characteristically blunt about the challenge his disciple faces at The Sphere.

“He’s gonna have to eat some punches to win this fight, period,” said thickly accented New Yorker Longo, who cornered Sterling’s second-round KO loss to O’Malley last August that came mere moments after all three judges had awarded the first frame to the soon-to-be-ex champ. “That’s it. O’Malley is the sharpshooter. You go in there thinking you’re not getting hit or you’re just gonna do this or do that, I think that’s a huge mistake.”

“I think Merab knows what he’s up against,” Longo went on to say. “I think O’Malley’s really good. I don’t think O’Malley’s ever faced anyone with the pressure of Merab, and I don’t think Merab’s fought anybody with the length and the accuracy and the power of O’Malley. [He] who controls the range will win that fight.”

If Longo proves prophetic, and if Dvalishvili dictates the range be as far apart as a hug from Grandma, the reward is the chance to become the first fighter born in the Republic of Georgia to claim UFC gold, adding to a brilliant year for the nation that also shocked the world at Euro 2024 when it’s David soccer team slingshotted Goliath Portugal for the nation’s biggest win on the international stage.

Dvalishivili was in Germany for his nation’s moment in the sports sun, watching, with his own chance at ultimate glory just a few short months away.

“This is my dream from childhood, and this is huge for my country,” Dvalishvili says. “We already have a champion in Ilia Topuria, but, oh my God, everybody [is] waiting for this fight in all [of the] country, and I’m gonna bring lots of happiness there.”

That’s Merab, all right: spreading happiness wherever he goes.