135 EXACTLY: Merab Dvalishvili Makes Weight — Petr Yan for the Belt

On Wednesday he still had 11 pounds to lose. On Friday in Abu Dhabi he hit championship weight to the ounce, and the trilogy is official.

The scale was the last opponent standing between Merab Dvalishvili and a third fight with Petr Yan. At Friday's official weigh-ins in Abu Dhabi, Dvalishvili beat it: 135 pounds, exactly. Championship weight, nothing to spare.

That number makes the UFC 333 co-main event official. Yan defends the bantamweight title against the No. 1 contender on Saturday at Etihad Arena, and the trilogy gets its final chapter.

The Cut Is Closed

On Wednesday, Dvalishvili laid out the numbers himself. In his own video, he said he had already cut 15 pounds, still had 11 more to go, and was down to sips of water to get the rest off.

"I'm already skinny. There is no more fat."

Forty-eight hours later, the scale read 135. The brutal cut he filmed all week ended with the cleanest number a challenger can post.

The Champion Matched Him

Yan left no opening either. The champion also weighed in at exactly 135 pounds. Both men made championship weight — Saturday's fight is the one both camps promised all week.

154 by Lunch

Then Dvalishvili did the most Merab thing possible. In a video posted hours after the weigh-in, he said he had already gained 19 pounds back in five hours, putting him at 154.

That figure is his own, from his own scale, not an official one. But the pattern is the story of his career: the cut is brutal, the refill is fast, and the man who walks into the cage on Saturday will not look like a man who starved to 135 on Friday.

One Miss on the Whole Card

Twenty-eight fighters weighed in, and twenty-seven hit their marks. Alexander Volkanovski came in at 144.5 and Movsar Evloev at 145, so the featherweight title main event is safe.

The only failure came on the early prelims. Nicolle Caliari weighed 120.5 pounds for a strawweight fight, 4.5 pounds over the limit. She forfeits 30 percent of her purse to Iasmin Lucindo, and the fight goes ahead as scheduled.

The scale is beaten. The champion is next.