Merab Dvalishvili is riding a nine-fight win streak and is currently the No. 2 bantamweight under top contender and former champion Aljamain Sterling.
Yet, when faced with the prospect of challenging new bantamweight world champion Sean O'Malley, Dvalishvili has repeatedly said that Sterling should get a rematch with O'Malley first.
And that, Dana White hates.
“Everybody in this room, and everyone watching this video knows how I feel about this s—t,” White told a pool of reporters Tuesday when asked about Dvalishvili giving up a potential title shot for his friend and stablemate Sterling. “I hate it. Why did you even get into this sport? If that’s your mentality and the way that you think: ‘I don’t want the title, I don’t want the championship, we’re friends, we’re this, we’re that.’
"... This is not about friendship," the UFC president continued. "This is about finding out who the best in the world is, and if you don’t want to find out who the best in the world is, this is not the place for you. You should be somewhere else. There’s plenty of places to fight where they don’t give a s—t what you do. It doesn’t work here.”
In the aftermath of O'Malley delivering a second-round TKO of Sterling to become the new bantamweight champion on August 19, Dvalishvili told MMA Junkie that he'd be willing to wait for Sterling to get a rematch rather than assert his own case for a title shot.
“After Aljamain Sterling, I am the No. 1 contender. We all know that,” Dvalishvili told MMA Junkie. “I have a nine-fight winning streak and I beat two former champions back to back. I fought everybody who they put in front of me. … I think the right way is that Aljo comes back, beat O’Malley, get his belt back, and I think after that he may go up a weight class.
"I’m the next guy after Aljo, so a good way would be to give Aljo a rematch and after that, I’m just going to wait for my title fight, and we’ll figure it out after. But I’m just going to fight for the title next — even if I have to wait a year or more.”