Top UFC bantamweight contender Merab Dvalishvili recently took part in a little grappling training with some local Indian wrestlers on a beautiful beach, and the footage went viral. Dvalishvili obviously has a huge skill advantage of course, and not just because of his extensive professional MMA career. He’s been competing in MMA for a little over a decade but he’s also a Judo black belt with experience competing in Sambo at a high level as well. In fact, he actually won a silver medal in the Combat Sambo world championship while he was right in the middle of his UFC career in 2019.
Dvalishvili racked up a 7-2 professional record before he ever got to the UFC and since signing for them in 2017 he’s skyrocketed up to the very top of the bantamweight division. Things didn’t start off so well though, as he lost his first two fights and was on a path to be cut from the promotion if he didn’t get some wins soon. He’s won every single fight since then and he’s on an incredible ten-fight winning streak that includes some of the biggest names in the sport like Petr Yan and Jose Aldo. Most recently he got a decision win over Henry Cejudo at UFC 298, proving once again that he deserves a shot at the title.
At the same time as he’s been skyrocketing up the bantamweight division, Dvalishvili has also been competing in professional grappling matches with just as much success. Given that he’s one of the top MMA fighters on the planet and an incredibly talented grappler, it’s no surprise that Merab Dvalishvili would prove to be a real handful for the local Indian wrestlers he met recently. He clearly wasn’t taking the friendly sparring too seriously either, as there was nothing on the line other than pride and he definitely had enough of a skill advantage to win exchanges without going all out.
Merab Dvalishvili uploaded the footage of him grappling with local Indian wrestlers on the beach in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
