Alexandre Pantoja Reveals Bold Stance on Super-Fight With Merab Dvalishvili
Reigning UFC flyweight kingpin Alexandre Pantoja was recently asked if he would consider moving up to bantamweight.
Pantoja has already defended his strap four times, and in December at UFC 323, he will look to defend it for the fifth time when he locks horns with Joshua Van.
Ahead of the title fight, in an interview with TMZ Sports, ‘The Cannibal’ said that he would consider moving up to 135 pounds if Sean O’Malley were still the champion. However, with ‘The Machine’ ruling the division now, Pantoja would rather have Merab Dvalishvili come down and fight him. He said:
“Ten pounds for me is much more than for other guys. If O’Malley got the belt, then I would say I’m ready to go, but with Merab, it’s different. Maybe if he comes down to flyweight, it’s gonna be easy for me.”
Check out Alexandre Pantoja’s comments below:
Dvalishvili became the UFC bantamweight champion at UFC 306 after dethroning Sean O’Malley. In 2025, ‘The Machine’ defended his strap successfully for the first time when he faced Umar Nurmagomedov and won by unanimous decision. For his second title defense, Dvalishvili ran it back with ‘Suga’ and submitted the latter in round three. In October, he locked horns with Cory Sandhagen and won by unanimous decision.
This December, ‘The Machine’ will run it back with Petr Yan at UFC 323, as he attempts to be the first UFC champion to have defended the belt four times in 12 months. For now, the Georgian has no plans of moving up or down a division, as he recently declared on Pound 4 Pound.
Alexandre Pantoja lauds Merab Dvalishvili, among others
With UFC champions like Merab Dvalishvili, Islam Makhachev, Ilia Topuria, Khamzat Chimaev, and Alexandre Pantoja himself, the latter declared in the same interview that modern MMA fans are the luckiest, as the current champions have made the sport more appealing and taught other competitors to “level up.
During the same TMZ Sports interview, ‘The Cannibal’ said:
“You see Merab, Ilia, Islam – the guys are showing everybody to level up. If you want to conquer the UFC belt, you need to level up. It’s one of the best eras for MMA fans, where you don’t know who’s the pound-for-pound when you have Merab, Islam, Ilia, Chimaev, and myself. It’s amazing to be part of a time like this.”
Check out Alexandre Pantoja’s comments below:
