Dvalishvili will break my record of UFC title defenses

MIAMI – Aljamain Sterling is confident his friend and teammate Merab Dvalishvili will do big things with his reign as UFC bantamweight champion.

Sterling held the UFC belt at 135 pounds and defended it three times, setting the record for most title defenses in the division. He believes Dvalishvili has all the tools and runway to surpass him in the division, especially after his most recent performance. Earlier this month, Dvalishvili completed his first title defense, handing Umar Nurmagomedov his first professional defeat in a big upset win.

“One hundred percent, I told him in the back room after he won,” Sterling told MMA Junkie when asked about his confidence in Dvalishvili breaking his record. “I said, ‘Brother, I’m telling you right now, you just got your first defense against who they say is supposed to be the toughest guy, and look what you did, look how you made him look.’ I thought it was 4-1 easily.

“With that said, who’s his next toughest challenger? He 50-45’d Petr Yan, who’s a tough dude. Obviously, he’s looked incredible in his last few fights, but I just think the gas tank is such a weapon. I told him, ‘If you want to be the champ for a while, you will break my record. It’s up to you. The only person who can beat you, it’s yourself.’ I truly do believe that.”

Dvalishvili’s win in the co-main event of UFC 311 opened the eyes of many skeptics. For Sterling, he expected Dvalishvili to dominate and was very proud of his showing.

“Overall, I thought it was a great fight,” Sterling said. “He fought exactly how we thought he would do. We know Umar is good, but we just didn’t think he was tested. We knew this was going to be the real test, fighting one of the best guys, if not the best guy, obviously the champ, who was beating champion after champion. I mean, what’s better than that in terms of test value? There was nothing too crazy that he brought to his game.

“The main thing was not getting controlled on bottom, and if we could keep the fight standing we thought he could do really well mixing in the takedowns, and he did exactly that.”