Dana White has noticed the kid from the hotel lobby. Asked by former UFC heavyweight Stefan Struve in a recent interview whether he’d sign Saba Lazishvili, the 21-year-old Georgian wrestler who went viral for standing next to Merab Dvalishvili during Wednesday’s brawl at a Yas Island hotel in Abu Dhabi, the UFC CEO didn’t slam the door.
“Yeah, everyone is talking about him and how he had his back,” White said.
Then came the hedge. “I’m sure he will make his way to the UFC. Eventually,” White added, and he suggested Lazishvili would need to prove himself in another promotion before he gets a UFC contract, according to Essentially Sports.
That condition makes sense, because Lazishvili has no MMA résumé at all. Not a pro fight. Not an amateur fight. He’s a wrestler. The footage that made him famous shows him helping Dvalishvili fend off Usman Nurmagomedov and his entourage while outnumbered, and Essentially Sports reported that he knocked out two of Usman’s teammates in the melee. Hotel lobby knockouts don’t go on a Sherdog page, though. The comparison Essentially Sports drew was Gable Steveson, an Olympic wrestler who still had to turn pro and fight elsewhere before the UFC came calling.
As for whether Lazishvili even wants to do this, Dvalishvili answered that on an Instagram Live right after the fight. “My young friend, he’s only a 21-year-old wrestler from Georgia, and he was with me,” Merab said. “He fought brothers Usman and Umar, and he has this much (cuts) on his face. And he said, ‘I’m moving to MMA.’”
He wouldn’t be walking in cold. His brother, Zviad Lazishvili, fought in the UFC and faced Jonathan Martinez in 2021. Saba also trains at Syndicate MMA under coach John Wood, alongside Dvalishvili and Aljamain Sterling. That’s a decent room to learn how to throw a punch on purpose.
The court case and Saturday’s card
The legal fallout landed hard and unevenly. The Abu Dhabi Justice Department convicted 10 people over the brawl. Usman Nurmagomedov and members of his group got six months in jail and a fine of 300,000 UAE dirhams (roughly $80,000). The two people who filmed the incident and posted it on social media got the same prison time and fine. Dvalishvili and Lazishvili were each hit with a 50,000-dirham fine (about $13,600) for causing a disturbance, with no jail time.
That cleared both of them to compete at RAF Abu Dhabi on November 14. Umar Nurmagomedov had been scheduled to face Urijah Faber in a freestyle wrestling match on that card, but he pulled out after his brother’s sentencing. Lazishvili took the spot. Dvalishvili, the former UFC bantamweight champion, keeps his original matchup against Marlon Moraes.
My take: everybody in the fight business loves a guy who’s never lost because he’s never competed. I’ve lost money on that exact profile more times than I’ll admit in print. White’s “eventually” is the most honest word in this whole saga, and Saturday is a wrestling match against Faber, a 147-ish legend of the lighter divisions doing this for fun, which tells you about as much regarding MMA readiness as the lobby clip does. I’ll get interested when Lazishvili signs a pro fight contract with a regional promotion and has someone standing across from him who studied tape, because nobody in a hotel lobby ever did.
