Fresh sparring footage of Merab Dvalishvili has hit social media just hours before UFC 323.
Russian bantamweight fighter Mark Vologdin shared a clip from their early morning rounds in Las Vegas. It was another clip to add to the growing fascination around the bantamweight king's extreme fight-day routines as he gears up to take on Petr Yan at UFC 323.
Vologdin dropped the video on X and captioned the post:
"This morning, I got rounds in with the Machine @MerabDvalishvili hours before he steps into the octagon for his UFC title fight. No better way to start the day. Proud to help sharpen the machine. #UFC323"
Check out the X post below:
Dvalishvili's approach has been a talking point all week. Fighters often loosen up with light movement or drills on the morning of an event. The champion prefers something far heavier.
Khalil Rountree Jr. said recently, after UFC 320, that he once watched Dvalishvili go through a full five-round sparring session at noon on the day he was set to defend his title. He called it the most unusual pre-fight habit he had ever witnessed.
Dvalishvili later said he did those rounds without headgear and cycled through fresh training partners who struggled to keep pace by the end. It fed into the image that has followed him for years that his engine doesn't slow down.
He enters UFC 323 on a 13-fight winning streak, the longest the division has seen. His chain wrestling has rewritten the record book with 117 total takedowns. He piled on 20 of those in a single title fight at UFC 320, a number only Khabib Nurmagomedov has topped.
Tonight offers another step toward rare territory. If he beats Yan, he becomes the first UFC champion to defend a belt four times in one calendar year. He already turned back Umar Nurmagomedov in January, Sean O'Malley in June, and Cory Sandhagen in October. Yan now gets his second shot at solving a matchup that troubled him in their first meeting in 2023.