Dvalishvili isn’t changing into striker: ‘That’s how we get knocked out’

Merab Dvalishvili has the biggest fight of his career when he headlines Noche UFC at the Sphere on September 14th against bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley.

Dvalishvili is still tight with his longtime team at Serra-Longo in New York, but since moving to Las Vegas he’s been training out of Syndicate MMA under head coach John Wood. And while Wood is undoubtedly working hard on Merab’s ability to hang with a striker of O’Malley’s pedigree, he’s not looking to re-invent the Georgian into something he’s not.

“I always, as a coach, look at the things that make Sean Sean and what we need to do to get around it,” Wood told Red Corner MMA. “And I never wanna overlook what got Merab to the dance, what brought Merab into this fight.”

“We have to try and keep those things in check, and not lose ourselves,” he continued. ”’Oh, we have to go learn traditional boxing. We have to do these things to compete with O’Malley.’ Because that’s how we’re gonna get knocked out.”

So what is Wood’s goal when working on the evolution of Merab Dvalishvili?

“Merab is a crazy man, we’ve just started to make him a technical crazy man,” Wood said. “Sean, there’s always holes in everybody’s game. If you’re really good at this, it opens up this. If you’re really good at countering that, it opens up this. It might take us a few more times to get where we need to get, but we’re gonna get there.”

“We’ve never seen Sean get pressured enough to where he breaks. But when you start to pressure him, there is a level of he does get tired. He does start to get a little whatever, but he’s very composed. He’s a world champion for a reason, so it’s not like you can pressure Sean and he just goes to s—. But if Merab can do Merab?”

All Dvalishvili has to do is avoid getting knocked out like his friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling.

“We’ve got a guy in here right now that’s a world champion striker who is a sniper just like O’Malley,” Wood said. “He’s built like him, doing things like him. There’s a lot of really good strikers [at Syndicate]. I’m not saying he is O’Malley, but we’ve got a lot of guys that can emulate that. I don’t think anybody out there can emulate what Merab does, the chaos that he brings.”

“Every fight since he’s been here at the gym, he’s getting better,” Wood assessed. “And he’s learning how to control and use his weapons properly. So Sean’s very good. There’s very few holes. But there’s definitely things we can capitalize on that we will capitalize on.”