UFC President Dana White believes top bantamweight contender, Merab Dvalishvili, should strongly reconsider his stance on not wanting to fight his friend and teammate, current bantamweight champ, Aljamain Sterling.
White spoke with the media during a press conference on Saturday night and advised Dvalishvili, who defeated former UFC bantamweight champion, Petr Yan, via a unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 221 over the weekend, to not avoid a future matchup against Sterling.
“I don’t remember who the hell I was talking to the other day about this, and I was like, ‘Yeah, we don’t have to deal with that bullsh*t anymore,'” White said (h/t MMA Junkie). “You know, back in the early days, the camps were so small, you didn’t have a lot of different options. So, we had a lot of these guys saying, ‘Oh, he’s my friend, he’s my friend. You can still be friends and want what your friend has, you know what I mean? It would be a really bad idea for Merab to go down that path. Does Merab want a shot at the title or would Merab rather have people under him jump over him, and him have to take on all these different tough guys when he’s not getting a title shot when he’s next in line for it? That’s a personal decision that he needs to make. If that’s what he wants to do, I can tell you how that story ends, and it’s not a good ending to that story. He’s a big boy, he can figure that out on his own.”
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