Aljamain Sterling: Merab Dvalishvili 'is going to shut a lot of people up' vs. Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311

Aljamain Sterling thinks the odds are in Merab Dvalishvili’s favor to beat Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311.

Dvalishvili (18-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC) defends his bantamweight title against Nurmagomedov (18-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) in Saturday’s co-main event (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Disney+, ESPN+) at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif.

Although betting odds suggest otherwise, Sterling is confident that his teammate will remind everyone why he’s unbeaten in his past 11 appearances.

“I think if we can keep the fight where we want it, Merab is going to shut a lot of people up and going to prove a lot of people right that he is who he says he is,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “No disrespect to Umar by any means.

“For me, it just comes down to one guy has done the work and one guy being propped up by the accolades of what his relative has done. I understand he’s trying to carve out his own name in history, but facts are still facts. The jury’s still out on Umar. We don’t really know if he’s really that guy just yet.”

Sterling says his team has intricately broken down Nurmagomedov’s game, and he’s confident Dvalishvili will be able to shut him down.

“We know he’s good, we know he can fight, we know he’s dangerous on the ground if he gets to your back,” Sterling said. “We know he’s got dynamic striking, we know he’s hard to hit cleanly, we do know he’s been dropped before by a debut guy, (Bekzat Almakhan). We do know his striking – he’s southpaw, he switches, he has a really good long front kick to the face, a nice question mark kick.

“How many of those strikes did he actually get off on Cory Sandhagen in Rounds 1, 2, 3 before Sandhagen started to slow down and get noticeably tired? So, there’s a lot of things we really paid attention to when we were breaking down the film. … I think this is going to come down to pressure. I think Merab is going to put the pressure on him, and I think good things are going to happen.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.