Merab Dvalishvili rips Umar Nurmagomedov at first UFC 311 press conference: ‘You are a piece of sh*t!’

Merab Dvalishvili is heated.

Next month, Dvalishvili will defend his bantamweight title against Umar Nurmagomedov in the co-main event of UFC 311. On Friday in Las Vegas, the UFC held its first press conference for the event, where the two men came face to face for the first time since the fight was booked, and things started hot right away with the champion saying Nurmagomedov doesn’t deserve this fight.

“Of course it’s personal, because every time I see him, I give him my respect, I shake his hand, I even tell him I was going to fight him one day,” Dvalishvili said. “And he started talking trash online, and real men don’t do this. So it’s personal for me.”

“I was going to take my time,” Dvalishvili continued. “I was thinking to take six months between my fights and I was going to enjoy. [Then] when Petr [Yan] had a great fight against [Deiveson] Figueiredo, I was so excited, especially because he called me out. Since Umar wasn’t able to fight in March, I said OK, let’s fight Petr in March in Las Vegas. O’Malley was coming back in April. I was thinking to fight O’Malley in April and I was thinking to fight Umar in May. Now it’s flipped.

“It’s going to be a tough fight. He’s a good fighter. But he didn’t earn it like everybody else. He didn’t go through [everybody]. You have to go through the best but he only fought no-wrestling [Cory] Sandhagen. Yeah, he’s a good fighter but you have to fight everybody to prove. But I give people what they want, and I give the UFC what they want.”

But Dvalishvili didn’t stop there. When Nurmagomedov was asked about the matchup, Dvalishvili interrupted him, shouting personal attacks at him.

“Be a man, first!” Dvalishvili screamed. “You have to be a man! You are good fighter but not a good man! You are piece of shit! You are [a] piece of shit! You lost respect! You lost respect as a man, from me! Real men don’t talk trash online!

Nurmagomedov responded by saying he never made any personal attacks, merely saying that Dvalishvili “tried to avoid” him, which set Dvalishvili off again.

“Who are you?! F*cking who are you?” Dvalishvili retorted. “You don’t even deserve it! You think I’m going to go backwards and fight No. 15? I’m fighting for the belt! I’m a f*cking champion! How dare you, you sneaky guy! After I beat Petr Yan and I became No. 1 contender, you called me out. ... You came in the locker room and you shook my hand and, ‘Hey congratulations,’ and you want to fight me when you were No. 14 and I was No. 1? ...

“They give you a gift. Be grateful!”

For Nurmagomedov’s part, he remained calm throughout Dvalishvili’s outbursts. At one point he did attempt to get the champion to clarify how he disrespected him, which then prompted Dvalishvili to again shout that Nurmagomedov is a liar.

“Everything was a lie!” Dvalishvili said. “You are a liar! You’re not a man! You lost my respect!”

Things got so bad that lightweight champion Islam Makhachev, who fights Armen Tsarukyan in the main event of UFC 311 and was also at the press conference, interjected to try and calm Dvalishvili down.

“I want to say just one thing,” Makhachev said. “Merab, I don’t have nothing for you past respect, but don’t make the belt look bad. When you have some real contender, just fight.”

Ultimately, nothing more happened beyond the harsh words and when Dvalishvili and Nurmagomedov shared their first face-off, UFC CEO Dana White kept the two far enough apart to prevent any physical altercation.

UFC 311 takes place on Jan. 18 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif.