Saba Lazishvili will wrestle Urijah Faber at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, November 14, replacing Umar Nurmagomedov in a matchup that was supposed to be one of the card’s big draws. RAF confirmed the swap Friday, according to MiddleEasy, and MMA Fighting posted the news on X shortly after.
If the name sounds familiar, that’s because Lazishvili spent most of fight week in the news for reasons that had nothing to do with wrestling. He’s the teammate who backed up Merab Dvalishvili during the hotel brawl with Team Nurmagomedov in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Jed I. Goodman summed up the internet’s reaction on X: “You dropped two guys during the hotel lobby brawl in Abu Dhabi.”
That brawl came with consequences. Ariel Helwani reported Friday morning that Dvalishvili and Lazishvili had just been released from a UAE detention center, where they’d been held since being detained Wednesday. Helwani said RAF CEO and co-founder Chad Bronstein worked with local authorities to get them out and was at the center when they walked free, almost 48 hours after they went in.
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A few hours later, both men were back on the card. Dvalishvili is confirmed to face Marlon Moraes, per MMA Fighting and Championship Rounds. Lazishvili takes Umar’s spot opposite Faber.
Who is Saba Lazishvili
According to Georgian fan account Giorgi Kokiashvili, who posted about him on X the day of the brawl, Lazishvili is 21 years old, a wrestler, and the younger brother of former UFC fighter Zviad Lazishvili. That same post claimed he had never thrown a punch in his life before Wednesday. We can’t verify the last part, and the video suggests he picked it up quickly.
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What he hasn’t had, at least publicly, is a big-name opponent. Faber is a UFC Hall of Famer and one of the most recognizable faces the lighter weight classes ever produced. For a 21-year-old whose biggest moment until this week was being somebody’s little brother, that’s quite a first headliner-adjacent booking.
Why Umar is out
No outlet in the reports we’ve seen has published an official reason for Umar Nurmagomedov’s withdrawal. Spinnin Backfist posted on X that he’s out because his brother is going to jail. Treat that as unconfirmed. What is on the record: MMA Fighting reported Thursday that Usman Nurmagomedov had been banned from attending RAF Abu Dhabi this weekend.
So the card lost a Nurmagomedov and gained the guy who was in the scrum with them. Over on r/MMA, the announcement thread’s original post consisted, in full, of “LMFAOOOOOO.” Hard to argue.
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I love a short-notice replacement, and this one barely had notice at all. Lazishvili went from a holding cell on Friday morning to a contract against Urijah Faber by Friday afternoon, with the match on Saturday. RAF’s matchmakers had a mess dumped on their desk and booked straight into it. Faber’s going to wrestle a kid who was just in a cell, on a card where his teammate is fighting Moraes, a day after the whole thing nearly went sideways. Saturday in Abu Dhabi just got a lot more interesting.
