Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder’s nose has become
the instructions in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” song “Time Warp”:
it’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right.
Merab
Dvalishvili has never had the straightest of noses, and he
wears his crooked beak like a badge of honor. As a result of his
many hard training sessions at his gym of Serra-Longo Fight Team,
including those where he dueled with fellow ex-champ Aljamain
Sterling, his nose took a lean towards the right. On Wednesday,
Dvalishvili posted a
video of himself driving to the hospital to get his face
checked. In what appeared to be a non-April Fools’ gag, he had his
even more tilted snout stuffed with bloody tissues, and he
explained what happened.
“What a good day, and what a stupid accident…again,” Dvalishvili
said in his video first displaying the damage to his schnoz. “Five
years after [my previous nose break], my nose is f—ed up even
worse [laughs]. As you see, it’s even more cracked the same
direction, and when I touch [my nose], my bones are broken inside.
And one side, I can’t even breathe. I’m gonna do x-ray now, I’m
sure UFC will help me with that, even [if] I don’t have a fight
coming up. I’m gonna try the surgery to fix this nose, and let’s
see how it goes. First time I broke my nose, it was in professional
debut, and now, I was just sparring, and I got kneed [to break it
again].”
I’m gonna deal with it
The Georgian subsequently provided a video and two images of his
x-ray results, showing the completely obliterated olfactory organ
in full display on the screens. On the video, the attending
physician described the damage visibly reminiscent of Olaf Alfonso
and Andrei
Arlovski, while noting that it was difficult to determine
exactly which breaks happened in the past and which snapped as a
result of his taking a knee to face during his last sparring
session. He also posted one more video on his way home, discussing
the results he received and what his plan was next.
“I did my x-ray, and my x-ray shows that my nose is broken in two
places,” “The Machine” explained. “I just saw [a] doctor, a nose
surgeon, and he said he will fix my nose. And [to make it straight]
he has to re-break other bones too, and it will take one more year
to heal up. Of course, I don’t want to do that. Otherwise, he said
keep it that way and you can do surgery after you retire. But, I
said I’m not going to do retirement in the next 20 years, so I
guess I’m going to keep my nose even more cracked [than] it used to
be before, and I’m gonna deal with it, and I’m still going to
compete at wrestling tournament against Henry
Cejudo at RAF [8] and that’s it.”
As the 35-year-old noted, he currently has no fight on the books.
The man who rightfully calls himself “The Machine” secured the
bantamweight throne at the end of 2024 and put it up for grabs four
times in 2025. While he successfully defended with decisions over
Umar
Nurmagomedov and Cory
Sandhagen, along with a submission of Sean
O’Malley, his fourth proved to be his undoing. In a rematch
with Russian ex-champ Petr Yan,
Dvalishvili could not overcome his rival again. He ultimately
suffered his first loss since 2018 to surrender his crown when he
fell short on the scorecards. He does plan on returning to
competition of sorts when he wrestles another ex-UFC champ in
Cejudo on April 18 atop RAF 8.