MERAB Has 11 POUNDS Left to CUT — 'This Will Be TOUGH'

The Machine's hardest fight this week is not Petr Yan. It is the scale — and by his own count, he is only a little more than halfway through it.

"I have already cut 7 kilos and I have 5 kilos left. This 5 kilos will be tough, as you can see I'm already skinny. There is no more fat."

That was Merab Dvalishvili on Wednesday, two days before the UFC 333 weigh-in, filming his own weight cut for social media. Seven kilos — about 15 pounds — already gone. Five kilos, roughly 11 pounds, still to shed before he can step on the scale at the 135-pound bantamweight limit.

No More Water

His plan for the last two days is the part fighters dread most. "I'm still drinking water a little bit, but from today no more water. I'll just maybe sip water and a little bit of food — and lots of sweat."

Dvalishvili is 35, and he has never missed weight in 17 UFC fights. Nobody around the trilogy expects him to start now. But there is a difference between making weight and making weight well — and no fighter in the sport depends on his engine more than this one.

Why It Matters Saturday

Dvalishvili's whole game is pace: chain wrestling, endless pressure, a gas tank that breaks elite fighters in the championship rounds. In their second fight, Yan stuffed 27 of his 29 takedown attempts — the Georgian knew mid-fight the wrestling was not landing the way it had in 2023.

A man who has drained 26 pounds in a week does not get to bring the same engine twice. If the last five kilos take something out of him, Saturday's co-main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi will show it first in the takedown entries — and Yan, the slight favorite, is exactly the wrong man to test a tired shot against.

The trilogy gets settled Saturday. Part of it gets settled Friday, on a scale, in a sauna.