Merab Dvalishvili’s loss: Aljamain Sterling reveals what surprised him about UFC 323 defeat
Former UFC champion Aljamain Sterling has given his thoughts on what went wrong for Merab Dvalishvili in his UFC 323 main event defeat at the hands of Petr Yan.
As we know, Merab Dvalishvili lost his UFC bantamweight championship last Saturday night. He was defeated by Petr Yan in the main event, and as a result, he will now have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what exactly went wrong before pursuing a rematch.
Merab Dvalishvili is an incredible fighter and he has been able to prove that by successfully defending the bantamweight title three times. With that being said, Petr Yan seemed to have an answer for just about everything that was coming his way at the weekend.
In a recent interview, Merab Dvalishvili’s close friend and cornerman Aljamain Sterling broke down what may have led to Merab’s loss.
Aljamain Sterling analyzes Merab Dvalishvili’s defeat
“I guess we were kind of wondering if Merab was seeing something different,” Sterling told Submission Radio. “Because those body punches, he’s almost put me down a couple of times with those. Just the weeks leading up to this fight and even the day of and in the back room, I would say he didn’t at all go to the body with his hands like he normally does.
We really feel like that could have probably been a difference maker, kind of like in the first fight when Yan kept attacking the calf and then Merab started kicking his leg back, and eventually he hurt him and had him forced to switch to the southpaw stance. This time Yan was a lot more comfortable in the southpaw stance because he has having a lot more success with that left body kick.
“Yeah, just a couple of technical things we were doing wrong. I think once we look at it and evaluate it together, we’ll all see the same thing, be able to make those adjustments relatively quick, and do some fight simulations. I find it hard to believe that version of Merab was the best version.
“In the back room and even in the morning shakeout, it was just different. A lot of the things he was doing before throughout camp, the new things that he was showing that he was picking up on, and the fight’s the fight. Sometimes you don’t do some of the things that you’re programmed to do. We’ve just got to give ‘The Machine’ a little bit of a reboot.”
Quotes via MMA Junkie
