Champion Injured Just Two Weeks Before Title Fight

In the video, the 135-lb king can be seen with a clearly bruised and compromised pinky toe, having injured it after a seemingly ill-fated kick to his sparring partner’s head during a training session, with Dvalishvili jokingly stating he was going to remove it. 

“Why you break my toe, my friend?” 

“That was you, you kicked me in the head and broke your toe, that was your fault,” his teammate Cameron Sandoval replies.

“I’m going to cut it off,” Merab Dvalishvili said. “This guy broke it.” 

At the time of this writing, the scheduled championship contest between Merab Dvalishvili and O’Malley is still on, with the promotion not making any official announcement on either the match being canceled or being postponed to a later date.

Merab Dvalishvili Often Competes in Compromised State

For almost any other fighter, an injury such as a broken toe could easily lead to them pulling out of a bout. However, Merab Dvalishvili isn’t like most UFC athletes. Across his last two outings to the cage, “The Machine” has had to exceed expectations while hindered by a small handful of impairments.

Before taking on O’Malley for the first time at UFC 306, the European had sustained a ghastly cut above his eye. The Georgian went on to dominate the Montana native with his superb wrestling to earn the 135-lb throne.

Even before making the first defense of his strap at UFC 311, Dvalishvili was battling a lot of diversity to his health, such as two cuts on his leg. His condition was so concerning that his own coach nearly took him out of the matchup.