On the night of September 15, the UFC 306 tournament will take place in Las Vegas, the main event of which will be the championship fight with the participation of Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili. Bookmakers give a minimal advantage to Sugar, but any outcome of the fight is unlikely to become a sensation.

The Georgian fighter has a real chance of becoming a champion: he has not been inferior to anyone for almost five years. Since he lost without a chance to the Russian engineer Stepan Kobenov in the World Championship final.

“It was a hobby”

UFC bantamweight title contender Merab Dvalishvili made his MMA debut in January 2014. In December 2017, Machina fought for the first time at the Absolute Fighting Championship tournament; by November 2019, he had four fights under his belt in Dana White’s organization, and ended the last two with victories. All this did not stop the athlete from deciding to participate in the World Combat Sambo Championship.

Dvalishvili went to South Korea, where he entered the up to 68 kg category. In MMA, Merab competed in the bantamweight division (up to 61 kg), but here he decided not to overdo weight cutting. It is curious that the Georgian did not have any significant winning experience in combat sambo. Yes, he once practiced sports sambo, but without achieving much success in amateur sports, he set out to conquer mixed martial arts. Nevertheless, the status of a UFC fighter created certain expectations among fans.

The Georgian had a successful start to the tournament and finished four fights with confident victories, although he had his nose broken in the semi-finals. In the fight for gold, Dvalishvili had to fight with Russian Stepan Kobenov, who, by the way, had also been training in combat sambo for only four years at that time. He had no significant titles, and in general, for the 29-year-old athlete, sport was just a hobby, and he worked as an engineer at the Novosibirsk thermal power plant.

“I just like doing this.” Initially, this was my hobby. Usually after work I went to training. And then I always studied for an extra hour myself. When I realized that I was going to the world, I asked to be released from work and began to train twice a day in Novosibirsk.

Stepan Kobenov / Photo: © Personal archive of Stepan Kobenov

Noble Russian

Training twice a day probably helped Stepan. He was not at all afraid when Dvalishvili began to attack him from the first seconds of the final. Merab colorfully waved his arms and even worked his legs a little, but then got caught in a throw, so the Russian earned the first point. Our athlete, by the way, could solve all the issues in the first minute, but the attempt to enter a painful hold was not successful, and the judge in combat sambo does not allow him to fiddle around on the ground for a long time.

The opponents returned to the stand, but this did not help Dvalishvili very much. Kobenov earned another point with a throw, tried to make a hold, but failed to build on his success. Merab is certainly good physically, but on the mat he simply lacked wrestling skills and, perhaps, intelligence. He kept trying to punch his opponent in the body; of course, it was unpleasant, but it didn’t add any points. But Stepan contrived and threw the Georgian again, earning two more points.

Stepan Kobenov / Photo: © Personal archive of Stepan Kobenov

By the way, if the Russian athlete had been less noble, he could have taken a good hit on his opponent’s damaged nose. The Georgian, with a high degree of probability, would have been withdrawn due to injury in such a situation, but Stepan, as a matter of principle, did not deliver accented blows to the face, although in unsuccessful situations such a gesture could cost him the gold medal.

Merab didn’t come up with anything in five minutes, in the last seconds he miraculously earned the only point and, without much sense in terms of scoring points, began to hit his opponent in the head, and even after the end of the fight he had no intention of stopping. The disappointed UFC fighter did not even shake his opponent’s hand, limiting himself to a blow to the liver. Since then, he has never lost to anyone in MMA, and later even managed to become the champion in combat sambo, although not of the world, but of the USA. And Stepan Kobenov returned to work at the thermal power plant, where he was congratulated and even given a bonus of 50 thousand rubles.

Live broadcasts of mixed martial arts tournaments can be seen on the Match TV and Match! Fighter”, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.