Coach Conversation | Merab Dvalishvili vs Cory Sandhagen

Kyte: Hmmm… that’s a really great question and I’m gonna have to take some time with it.

Chartier: It’s champion, undefeated Dagestani contender, champion, champion and Olympic gold medalist, champion, champion G.O.A.T. at ’45, champion in World Series of Fighting that was a scary guy at the time; he’s literally just fighting champs.

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Kyte: The only person that might be in the same range is Jon (Jones) when he got the belt because it was (Ryan) Bader, Shogun (Rua), Rampage (Jackson), (Lyoto) Machida, Rashad (Evans), and then Vitor (Belfort) and Chael (Sonnen) before the first fight with (Alexander Gustafson).

It doesn’t have to be clean or even that effective in terms of damage and landing — it’s just that he’s always putting something out there for you to deal with, mixing things up, and when you look at a fight like this against Chimaev, that ability to make him work, force him to be a little more defensive, and maintain that output into the third, fourth, fifth rounds could be a big positive for him.

Chartier: A confident fighter is a loose fighter in camp, so they’re less prone to injury, more confident in the sessions, so you’re gonna get more out of them in every session because they’re confident in what you’re saying, they’re confident in themselves, confident that the game plan is gonna work.

When you have a fighter that has that confidence and that self-belief, all those little hiccups that happen in camp, they just roll off your back and don’t matter — “We’re good” — versus when you’re lacking that confidence, uncertainty creeps in and when those little things happen, it’s “I knew it. I knew this was gonna happen.” Everything changes and your confidence declines more and more.

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It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: your lack of confidence leads to the things you were worried about happening happening more because you’re not operating from that place of confidence, and then your attitude creates more downfalls and more hiccups, which leads to more “see, this is why I thought that,” and it just breeds a great lack of confidence.

Confident fighters are a gem.

Kyte: Merab is working on earned confidence right now too because he’s done all the things, continued to improve, continued to show new wrinkles — he got through the Umar fight after putting himself in a position where he needed to win the final three rounds, and came out and did it.

I spoke with him the other day and it’s impressive to see just how dialed in he is these days.

Path to Victory

Kyte: What does each of these guys need to do on Saturday in order to get a win and leave as the bantamweight champion? 

Chartier: I think Merab is just what he always does: come forward, mix in takedowns, control the pace of the fight and don’t stop. His big thing right now is that he’s fighting to finish, whereas before he was controlling, and the emphasis is getting to that next level if finishing guys; taking bites when there is something to bite.

As long as he doesn’t get caught up in looking for the finish and continues doing what he’s been doing — apply the pressure, take what he gives you, but be relentless — that’s what he’s got to do; just stick to what got him there.

X Factor

Kyte: What’s the x-factor in this one? What’s one thing that could swing this fight in either direction?

Chartier: I think it’s whether Cory tries to wrestle. I don’t see him winning this fight if he doesn’t commit to wrestling. I think it will be Merab coming forward, drawing out the spinning stuff, the flying knees, and then hitting takedowns off poor positioning.

I think the x-factor is whether or not Cory is willing to go in there and try to test his wrestling. I think he knows he has to, and I think he will; I think he will.

Kyte: So to me, we always talk with Merab and any of these guys that are wrestlers, big on forward pressure how you’ve got to be up the center line — kicks up the middle, knees up the middle, uppercuts and stuff like that. Cory is the first guy where that is just part of his arsenal anyways and he’s really good, really comfortable with it.

I’m curious to see if that slows Merab down at all, gives him a little pause to where he’s got to rein it in a little because you get thinking, “This dude will jump in place and knee me straight in the face.” Get him thinking that he can’t just drop down and rush forward.

Chartier: Momentum is a real thing, and some people don’t make good nails.

Everyone in MMA is good being the hammer, but some people, when they become a nail, they stay a nail. The people that can go from being a nail to getting back to being the hammer? Those are the champions. They’re the ones that can figure out, “I was a nail last round, but I have to go be a hammer now.”

The guys that never quite make it, the minute they become a nail, they stay a nail.

Kyte: That’s a really great way to put it, and feels like the right way to wrap things up. Thanks for this!

Chartier: No problem.