According to one of Merab Dvalishvili‘s former training partners, the bantamweight champ could have a noticeable advantage over Umar Nurmagomedov by the mid-way point of their upcoming fight at UFC 311.
Appearing on a recent episode of Bowks Talking Bouts, Jose ‘Shorty’ Torres discussed several subjects ahead of his 130-pound catchweight fight against Makoto Shinryu for Rizin’s New Year’s Eve festivities to end in 2024.
While Torres admitted to not having that same training experience with Nurmagomedov, ‘Shorty’ does have training experiences with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev.
When discussing his training history with the current UFC bantamweight champion in the context of his thoughts on Dvalishvili embarking on his attempted first title defense against Umar Nurmagomedov on Jan. 18, Torres said:
“He doesn’t die and that’s the fact with fighting Merab, you have to finish him. If you don’t finish him, he’s going to just demolish you. Because he’s that little cub bear that just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
“Until it becomes a full grown bear and you’re like oh dude, this sucks. That’s what’s going to happen with Umar, if Umar can’t finish him in the first or second round.”
Check out Torres’ thoughts on the UFC 311 bantamweight title fight below (13:06):