MORRISTOWN, N.J. – Merab Dvalishvili and Patchy Mix are willing to put their friendship aside for a championship fight.
Dvalishvili (19-4 MMA, 12-2 UFC) defends his bantamweight title in a rematch against Sean O’Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC), which headlines Saturday’s UFC 316 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) event at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. On the main card, Mix (20-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) makes his octagon debut against Mario Bautista (15-2 MMA, 9-2 UFC).
Dvalishvili was asked about the possibility of fighting Mix, who he has trained with regularly in Las Vegas in the past few years.
“Patchy Mix is a great fighter,” Dvalishvili said during Wednesday’s UFC 316 media day. “Yes, we’re training a lot. He’s one of the best, and I respect him. I’m happy for him. He’s in the UFC right now, and I wish him all the best. It’s good for the UFC, good for the division. We have another top fighter in this division. It’s good. He told me he was coming to the UFC and we talked about this, and we are cool.
“We are friends. We are training together. It’s not the same as it was between me and Aljo (Sterling). If the time comes, we will fight each other. It’s nothing personal. He’s fighting for his family, I’m fighting for my family and my team. That’s all good. I wish him good luck in his fight, and hopefully I’m going to win this fight against Sean O’Malley, and we’ll see from there.”
Former Bellator champion Mix is ready to jump the line with an impressive showing against Bautista. He is also open to facing Dvalishvili for the title, and confirmed that it’s a situation they’ve already discussed.
“We’ve sparred hundreds of rounds. We’ve grappled hundreds of rounds,” Mix told ESPN. “When I first moved to Vegas probably four years ago, we started training together. For his Petr Yan fight and my Sergio (Pettis) fight, we did a championship fight simulation in the cage at Syndicate every Thursday, five rounds. We’re very familiar with each other. He grapples at the same gym, 10th Planet. … We were training actively together, but then when I had to halt and kind of knew I might be released (by PFL), I told him as a man, ‘Hey, I might come over. I wanted to let you know,’ because he had that thing with Umar (Nurmagomedov) (about) being a man.
“So I wanted to tell him, as a man, ‘I might come over. I want to let you know so that maybe we can distance training. If it’s for the belt, you know, I’d love to’ because I’m a world champion coming over, and I’m one of the most highly credentialed world champions to ever come over. So I know I’m not that far, maybe a win or two from the belt. I wanted to let him know to give him a heads up – not like one day he wakes up and he’s shocked by that. He had an awesome reaction, super respectful. I have a family, he has a family. He respects that this is my goal, to be the best in the world.”
