Merab Dvalishvili has the largest battle of his profession when he headlines Noche UFC on the Sphere on September 14th towards bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley.
Dvalishvili remains to be tight together with his longtime group at Serra-Longo in New York, however since transferring to Las Vegas he’s been coaching out of Syndicate MMA underneath head coach John Wooden. And whereas Wooden is undoubtedly working exhausting on Merab’s capability to hold with a striker of O’Malley’s pedigree, he’s not seeking to re-invent the Georgian into one thing he’s not.
“I at all times, as a coach, take a look at the issues that make Sean Sean and what we have to do to get round it,” Wooden informed Purple Nook MMA. “And I by no means wanna overlook what bought Merab to the dance, what introduced Merab into this battle.”
“We have now to try to preserve these issues in verify, and never lose ourselves,” he continued. ”’Oh, we now have to go be taught conventional boxing. We have now to do this stuff to compete with O’Malley.’ As a result of that’s how we’re gonna get knocked out.”
So what’s Wooden’s aim when engaged on the evolution of Merab Dvalishvili?
“Merab is a loopy man, we’ve simply began to make him a technical loopy man,” Wooden mentioned. “Sean, there’s at all times holes in all people’s sport. For those who’re actually good at this, it opens up this. For those who’re actually good at countering that, it opens up this. It would take us a number of extra instances to get the place we have to get, however we’re gonna get there.”
“We’ve by no means seen Sean get pressured sufficient to the place he breaks. However while you begin to stress him, there’s a degree of he does get drained. He does begin to get slightly no matter, however he’s very composed. He’s a world champion for a motive, so it’s not like you may stress Sean and he simply goes to s—. But when Merab can do Merab?”
All Dvalishvili has to do is keep away from getting knocked out like his buddy and coaching companion Aljamain Sterling.
“We’ve bought a man in right here proper now that’s a world champion striker who’s a sniper identical to O’Malley,” Wooden mentioned. “He’s constructed like him, doing issues like him. There’s numerous actually good strikers [at Syndicate]. I’m not saying he’s O’Malley, however we’ve bought numerous guys that may emulate that. I don’t suppose anyone on the market can emulate what Merab does, the chaos that he brings.”
“Each battle since he’s been right here on the gymnasium, he’s getting higher,” Wooden assessed. “And he’s studying how you can management and use his weapons correctly. So Sean’s excellent. There’s only a few holes. However there’s positively issues we will capitalize on that we’ll capitalize on.”
