Championship fights are layered battles, with the competitors stepping into the Octagon operating at the highest level in their respective weight classes. Breaking down how these pivotal contests could possibly play out is a challenging venture, which is why UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte has taken to enlisting the help of some of the sharpest minds in the sport to help dissect these critical contests.
Ahead of Saturday’s bantamweight title bout between Merab Dvalishvili and Umar Nurmagomedov, Kyte and New England Cartel head coach Tyson Chartier discussed the matchup between champion and challenger based on four elements — the best trait of each fighter, the potential paths to victory, possible X-factors, and a point of curiosity each has about the contest — in hopes of providing the best pre-fight breakdown of the fight possible.
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Best Trait of Each Fighter
Kyte: All right — what’s the best trait of each of these guys?
Chartier: Obviously, Merab is known for his cardio and his ability to just have better cardio than anybody he fights, and that’s what he leads with, behind his wrestling. It’s the wrestling and the cardio that is behind it, and it’s something that a lot of people haven’t been able to overcome.
With Umar, he’s obviously got great wrestling, great striking, he’s a strong guy, super-technical, but I think if anything, I think it goes beyond that. I think these guys from Dagestan that haven’t lost yet, there is a different confidence to them than other fighters.

I think the belief they have in their system, their training partners, in their coaches, with Khabib (Nurmagomedov) and his dad — the belief they have in what they do, it’s almost like every time they fight, they’re fighting their little brother, and you’re not gonna lose to your little brother. I think the confidence he has in his skill set and his lineage could be second-to-none, and it’s not just him, either; it’s that whole group.
That’s the biggest thing that stands out to me because he’s gotten hurt in fights and been able to overcome it.
Kyte: I like that you led with the cardio and the conditioning for Merab ahead of the wrestling, because I think our tendency is to identify the skill ahead of everything else and just go, “It’s his wrestling.”
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But I think what makes him as good as he is, is that if you told him just before he took the last step into the cage, “By the way, we’ve changed this to 50 rounds,” he’d be like, “Great!” because he has the conditioning to do it.
He’s not necessarily a guy that takes you down and keeps you down, smothers you; he’s not a suffocating grappler. He delights in dumping you over and over and over and taxing your system, and he can do it because he’s got the conditioning to do it. How many fighters have we seen where they hit two or three takedowns in a round or they get on top for a bit, they had to work a little to get there, and after that, they’re just gassed?

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Merab can take you down over and over and over, and it’s the conditioning, the cardio, the gas tank that allows him to go 25 minutes the way we saw against Petr Yan and stuff like that where he’s just non-stop.
Chartier: I don’t know that he has an inability to hold people down…
Kyte: Neither do I.
Chartier: I think he could hold people down more if he wanted to, but I think his approach is very different than Umar’s approach. When (Merab) gets on top of you, he’s trying to hang on you and wear you down.
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Kyte: And he’ll give you the doorway, the little exit to get back up because it’s work, and it takes more to get back up than it does to just accept being on bottom.
Chartier: And then you’ve got Umar who is going to kill you with pressure. If he doesn’t get to your back and he’s on top, it’s gonna be “Oh my god — how much does this guy weigh?” It’s a very different approach.
Merab is gonna hang on you, whereas Umar is gonna smash you.
Kyte: Merab is going to drown you, rather than suffocate you; he’s constantly dunking your head under water instead of just trying to hold you down there.
The thing you said about the confidence and the aura of the Dagestani guys is 100 percent to me because I think there is something — and we haven’t figured it out yet, and I don’t know that we will; and it’s not just them and their room — but I think there is something to “I never have a more difficult fight than I have rounds in this room, and if I can survive this, there is nothing you’re going to bring to me that I can’t deal with.”
For a guy like Umar, for a guy like Islam (Makhachev), they’ve come up having to be training partners for Khabib, for Islam — for these world-class talents where they go hard all the time and exhaust the hell out of one another. Then you show up on fight week and feel like “this isn’t going to be as bad as that was.”
Now, we’ve seen Umar get hurt and there is some definite intrigue here, but I agree with you completely on that there is an aura to them, and I think in addition to it being a confidence boost for them, I think a lot of guys they’re in there with start out a little psyched out — not to a crazy degree, but enough that it creates a little hesitation, a little unsure, and we know that can be all it takes some times.
Path to Victory for Each Fighter
Kyte: How does each of these guys get it done on Saturday night?
Chartier: I think Merab needs to be able to dictate the pace of the fight and stay on it. Even if he gets stuffed in the wrestling, gets countered in the wrestling, put on the bottom, he needs to motion and not pull back, not that we’ve ever seen him do that anyway.
His path to victory is to be Merab; just be Merab.
I think Umar — if he only plays: think of how Petr Yan fought (Merab). If he’s only going to play striking and takedown defense, you’re never gonna have a chance to strike; it’s never gonna be your turn if Merab is being Merab. So Umar is just thinking “defend the takedown and win on the feet,” it’s hard to win on the feet, so you’ve got to win some of those wrestling exchanges and get on top of Merab, too.
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If he avoids wrestling all together, I think that can be a detriment, so I think he needs to mix in wrestling of his own, or else he’s never going to have a chance to go.
Kyte: That’s a great point and that was part of O’Malley’s problem in their fight, and (Sean Madden) and I talked about this a bunch last year in this series that it’s all well and good to be a counter striker, but you can end up in a position where you just kept waiting and it never came, so I think you’re spot on that he’s got to be first a bunch of times.

It’s a tricky fight for him. This feels a little like the Topuria-Holloway fight for me in the sense that I can see Umar winning, but I’m not completely sure how he gets it done, which is how I felt about Topuria heading into that fight.
I don’t think it’s going to be the exact same as he’s done to other guys — he’s not going to wrestle Merab for 25 minutes like he did Cory Sandhagen, I don’t think, so I think he’s got to do a little bit of three or four different things in order to be successful, and even then it could still be 48-47.
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It’s going to be interesting to see if Umar can dictate, because Merab doesn’t give people the opportunity. Since his first couple fights, it has been “I’m coming forward” and he’s fine with getting hit. It’s going to be curious to see if Umar can push forward, put him on the back foot a little bit so that he gets to initiate.
The kicks will be tricky too because you have to get them back quickly or else Merab will catch one and run you down.
Chartier: Yeah, it’s hard to kick against Merab, for sure.
Kyte: It’s going to be really interesting.

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X Factor
Kyte: If there were one thing that was going to significantly impact how this fight plays out — that swings it in one direction or the other — what would it be?
Chartier: I think it’s the cardio, specifically how does Umar’s cardio measure up to Merab’s? It doesn’t have to be as good, but does his break? Does he have a wall?
Sandhagen didn’t push the tempo enough and it’s a different style of fight when you’re reacting. When you’re taking him down, they’re going to get more tired, but when you have a guy that’s in your face and you’re looking to counter, defending, defending, defending — when you can’t control the pace of the fight, how does your cardio hold up?
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That’s the X-factor: Umar’s cardio in relation to being a passenger.
Kyte: I’m so fascinated by this fight, same with the main event.
I think Umar can win this fight in a bunch of different ways, That said, if you told me Round 4 and Round 5 were heavy Merab rounds and he got a finish in there, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least because of what you just said.

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I think we’re a little too reductive at times when we do the “we’ve seen him go five rounds” because of exactly what you’re saying. It’s so different going 25 minutes when you’re in control, there isn’t a lot of resistance, and what he’s going to have to deal with on Saturday.
This what Umar has to show everyone, which was the same thing with the Topuria fight against Max: can you go out there and be the same guy you’ve been the whole way up to this point? Topuria was clearly able to do it, and now we’ll see if Umar can against Merab.
And if he can’t hang, we’ll see him — I’ll be interested to see if and when he starts slowing. How quickly does it start to happen? Because whenever it starts showing, Merab is coming that much harder.
One Coaching Curiosity
Kyte: What’s got your curiosity here?
Chartier: I’m interested to see how well Merab deals with Umar’s back attacks. He gets there a lot, he’s a good counter-wrestler, and he’s shown that even on a failed shot, he can get to your back and ride there.

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He’s very good on the back, but the fact that Merab trains with Aljamain Sterling, he’s probably feeling that every day, and Aljo is one of the best back attack guys there is, plus he’s a bigger guy than Umar.
So I’m interested to see if after the Sandhagen fight, Merab really has a plan for how to defend the back and turn it into being on top?
Sandhagen was really creative at some of the defenses he had to keep the scramble going, but he didn’t ever get to where it’s “I reversed you and now I’m on top.” He was always scrambling, not getting choked, and sometimes he would get up, but he was never reversing, and I’m curious to see if Merab turns these back attacks into reversals?
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I know if Merab has a failed shot, Umar is probably going to attack the back, so can Merab turn that into offense?
Kyte: Wrestling may not have been the game plan for Cory in that fight…
Chartier: But you’ve got to be opportunistic in those positions. If you are not getting a chance to stand, and you get a chance to spin your elbow and shoulder to the ground and turn into their closed guard, you’ve got to do that.
Kyte: And then start smashing.
How those exchanges — I’m fascinated by the potential grappling exchanges in this fight.
Chartier: Now they’ll probably just bang for 25 minutes.
Kyte: Which is fine! I’m okay with that, but yeah, I’m really curious to see it because Umar is the first guy on paper that we’ve thought can maybe hang with Merab.
Now, that’s on paper, and we haven’t seen it, but even that gets me pretty excited.
Chartier: It should be fun.

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UFC 311: Makhachev vs Moicano took place live from Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California on January 18, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!