Cory Sandhagen isn’t sold on Merab Dvalishvili being an unstoppable force.
Sandhagen is set to challenge “The Machine” for the UFC Bantamweight Championship on Oct. 4. The title fight is set to serve as the co-headliner for UFC 320. The main event of that pay-per-view card will feature a UFC Light Heavyweight Championship rematch between titleholder Magomed Ankalaev and Alex Pereira.
Dvalishvili has developed a reputation of being a nightmare for his opponents due to his high-level cardio. Speaking to MMAFighting.com, Sandhagen said he won’t allow himself to buy into the mystique.
“I’m not going to buy into any of the narrative that Merab’s this cardio machine,” Sandhagen said. “That he’s this unbeatable guy. That he’s on a tear and can’t be stopped.
“I’m not buying into any of that. I fully plan on going out and beating Merab and wearing gold on my waist. That’s all that I know in my heart.”
Sandhagen went on to say that Umar Nurmagomedov proved you can fight Dvalishvili competitively while being tired, but he understands that it’s not the best way to operate against the champion.
“When you fight a guy like Merab, fighting tired just isn’t very fun,” Sandhagen said. “You can do it but it’s just not ideal, especially for a very athletic guy like [Sean] O’Malley. I think that Umar [Nurmagomedov] did a good job of being ‘I’m about to defend these shots, we can wrestle, we can wrestle, bitch.’ There’s that attitude going in to fight a wrestler and then there’s a [mentality] like ‘oh man, I want to keep out of the wrestling exchanges and stuff like that.’ I kind of made that mistake against Umar, too, where I ran from the wrestling exchanges a little bit too much, and I made it so amongst other things, I couldn’t do what I usually do.”
Sandhagen is coming off a “Performance of the Night” showing against former UFC Flyweight Champion Deiveson Figueiredo. Dvalishvili’s last fight was a submission win over Sean O’Malley in their title rematch at UFC 316.