Dana White baffled by Merab Dvalishvili removing his own stitches with ‘bush shears’ — ‘Isn’t he awesome?’

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

It doesn’t seem like Merab Dvalishvili is ever going to be one of UFC CEO Dana White’s favorite employees.

The surging Bantamweight contender is less than three weeks away from the biggest fight of his life, a 25-minute title clash opposite Sean O’Malley that headlines the UFC 306 fight card from inside the Las Vegas Sphere. White has invested a ton of money into the event, and one half of his main event can’t stop doing weird s—t.

A week ago, White buried Dvalishvili for getting cut in training camp and then posting about it online. Seven days later, it’s time for those stitches to come out, and “The Machine” has taken matters into his own hands with a massive pair of scissors. What could go wrong?!?

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s episode of Contenders Series, White was asked about Dvalishvili’s latest antics online. This time, White couldn’t really muster any anger. Instead, the baffled CEO largely laughed it off. “Isn’t he awesome,” White replied when asked about the video of Dvalishvili removing his own stitches. “I think he’s just f—king with me now to be honest with you.”

“Do what you want,” White continued after admitting that he hadn’t spoken to Dvalishvili. “Did you ever see the scissors they take stitches out with? They’re tiny, and they have that thing on there so you don’t cut yourself. They can slide ‘em up under the stitches, you don’t cut yourself. This dude had like f—king bush shears that he was using, trim your bushes with that gardeners use. Whatever, good for him.”

Ultimately, as long as Dvalishvili makes it to fight night, all’s well that ends well?

Insomnia

The Ruotolo brothers are splitting their CJI money.

Demetrious Johnson rolling with top-notch grappler and fellow One Championship athlete, Mikey Musumeci.

Two nice examples of Jack Della Maddalena throwing multiple combinations with the same hand:

Is the shoulder roll on the rise in MMA? Ilia Topuria uses it well, and he’s a new champion likely to terrorize the Featherweight ranks for years to come.

I enjoyed Darren Stewart’s UFC career and wish him “The Dentist” the best in retirement.

Henry Cejudo thinks Bo Nickal would beat Israel Adesanya RIGHT NOW … which would be quite the jump.

There’s less than three weeks for UFC to move almost 3000 tickets for The Sphere. Think it sells out?

Two excellent Featherweight grapplers collide — think we get a kickboxing match?

Slips, rips, and KO clips

This cage side view of Randy Costa’s knockout over Jason Knight is NASTY!

1-2 same side high kick is a beautiful response to a clean body kick landing.

This uppercut was perfectly timed.

Random Land

Street art on the go.

Midnight Music: Soul, 1974

Anecdote of the week: This didn’t quite feel relevant enough to include in the main story section, but I thought I’d share a quick story down here at the bottom. After winning a fight in Tampa and getting a bit busted up in the process, the local ER put a single staple on the top of my head. The woman who stapled my skin together was ex-military and transitioning into civilian care. She advised that it wouldn’t hurt at all and that I could remove the staple myself in about a week, no need to return to a hospital.

Neither statement turned out to be particularly true. A week or so later, I’m sitting on the floor of my bathroom with my girlfriend (now wife), who’s prying on that staple with a pair of tweezers, pliers, and an iPhone flashlight. As she tries to wiggle it free, I can feel my entire scalp moving left and right with her yanks. I eventually am able to detach one half via brute force and then smoothly slide the other hook out.

The cut doesn’t open significantly in the process, so I suppose the tech was right in the end?

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.