Merab Dvalishvili picks surprising UFC pound-for-pound ranking that proves how selfless he truly is

Dvalishvili doesn’t consider himself the best, despite having six wins over former world champions and not losing in over seven years. Instead, he gives the top spot to his Georgian teammate, Ilia Topuria, following Topuria’s second title win.

Topuria had just finished former lightweight champ Charles Oliveira at UFC 317, following knockouts of Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway in his back-to-back featherweight title fights.

“Right now, I will say Ilia. Number one,” Dvalishvili told The Ariel Helwani Show. “Who does this? I mean, he’s undefeated and how he wins the last three fights and [he’s a] two-division champion.”

“Number two, Islam,” Dvalishvili continued. “I will say number three, Pantoja.”

Helwani noted that Dvalishvili was leaving himself out of the top three, to which Dvalishvili replied, “Number four is good. I have to be [humble] because I don’t wanna overlook my opponents.”

Dvalishvili suggests his next fight could be against Cory Sandhagen

Dvalishvili appears to have been given the choice of his next opponent for the first time in his career.

He has already successfully defended his bantamweight title twice, against Umar Nurmagomedov and Sean O’Malley, and is already being considered as one of the greatest bantamweights of all time. ‘The Machine’ will look to fight again closer to October or November this year, he told Ariel Helwani.

“This is the first time the UFC called me,” Dvalishvili told MMA Junkie.

“When I was in Georgia, and said, ‘Go enjoy your country, have a great time, and when you come to Las Vegas, let’s go to dinner and choose who you want to fight and when you want to fight’…”

“This is the first time (it happened),” Dvalishvili said, adding Sandhagen is the ‘most deserving’ to fight him.

Sandhagen has won four out of his last five fights and his last win is a second-round TKO of former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo in May.