Merab Dvalishvili had the microphone after his win at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, and he used it to ask the UAE government to let Usman Nurmagomedov and his team out of custody. These are the same men who were convicted this week of attacking him.
“Please. Please. We are just fighters,” Dvalishvili said, according to a clip Happy Punch shared on X. ACD MMA also posted the moment, describing it as Dvalishvili using his post-fight interview to call for the release of Team Nurmagomedov.
This is a very different tone from the one around him all week. The trouble started with a hotel altercation in Abu Dhabi, and footage of the scuffle circulated on X on Wednesday, Nov. 11. That same day Ilia Topuria posted that Usman had reportedly been detained “along with the cowards who were with him.” Nina-Marie Daniele, who called Dvalishvili “like a brother to me,” wrote that the video made her sick and described it as “a premeditated attack, with their phones already filming.” She also said she hoped the UFC would ban Nurmagomedov and his friends.
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Islam Makhachev defended Nurmagomedov in a statement posted by Championship Rounds. He said the incident traced back to an earlier run-in in Georgia: “What happened today was started by Merab in his own homeland when he took it upon himself to hit a guest and insult his mother.”
The courts moved fast. On Friday, Nov. 13, Championship Rounds, citing the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, and ACD MMA, citing The National, reported the sentences:
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- Usman Nurmagomedov and five other members of his team each got six months in prison and a Dh300,000 fine, and they will be deported after serving their time.
- Dvalishvili and Saba were each fined Dh50,000 for “disturbing public security and assaulting others.”
- The two people who filmed the brawl also got six months, Dh300,000 fines and deportation orders for “violating privacy by using information technology to film and publish footage of the brawl.”
That last item matters. The phones Daniele pointed to ended up costing two people as much as the guys throwing hands, at least on paper.
The Abu Dhabi authorities have not responded publicly to Dvalishvili’s appeal, according to anything in the record so far. If nothing changes, Nurmagomedov and the five others serve six months and then get put on a plane.
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My take: I’ve spent a career telling people to ignore the storyline and read the numbers, so here they are. The other side’s fines are six times the size of Dvalishvili’s, and he’s the one asking for mercy. He didn’t need to. He could have taken the win, waved at the camera and let Topuria and Daniele keep swinging online. He spent his best moment of the night on the guys who came at him, and that will do more for his reputation than any victory lap. Whether a post-fight interview moves a UAE court is a bet I wouldn’t touch at any price. Asking cost him nothing, and the quote is going to follow Nurmagomedov around for a lot longer than six months.
