“Merab says – I don’t want to fight my friend,” Cormier said in another video posted on his Youtube channel. “I’ll tell you this – part of the reason I didn’t want to fight Cain Velasquez was because I knew what was going on in the gym every day. So the question is, can Merab handle Aljo, given that he doesn’t want to fight this guy?”
“Obviously, friendship comes first. But when you train with a guy on a daily basis, you know how tough he is and how hard he is to beat, if at all possible, that plays a role too, affects your desire to fight him. Typically, the guy who doesn’t want to fight is someone who is not a champion. In this case it’s Merab Dvalishvili.”
Two weeks ago, Aljamain Sterling lost his UFC flyweight championship belt by second-round technical knockout to Sean O’Malley and displaced Merab Dvalishvili from the top spot in the division’s rankings.