Merab Dvalishvili will still wrestle Marlon Moraes at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, November 14, after Real American Freestyle confirmed on Friday that he remains on the card, and 21-year-old Georgian wrestler Saba Lazishvili replaces Umar Nurmagomedov against Urijah Faber. The event is at Etihad Arena and starts at 8 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET, 17:00 CET).
What RAF confirmed
Ariel Helwani reported that RAF CEO Chad Bronstein told him Dvalishvili is competing on the card against Moraes. Helwani described Lazishvili as "Merab's 21-year-old friend turned Georgian hero" and said he had been added in Umar Nurmagomedov's place against Faber. RAF then posted a "CONFIRMED" graphic for the Lazishvili vs. Faber pairing, and MMA Fighting reported both announcements.
The announcement came hours after Helwani reported that Dvalishvili and Lazishvili had been released from detention in the United Arab Emirates earlier on Friday.
According to MiddleEasy, the new graphic lists Lazishvili vs. Faber as a catchweight crossover match, while the earlier Nurmagomedov vs. Faber listing called it a lightweight crossover match. No numerical weight limit has been published, and MiddleEasy says RAF's announcement gave no reason for removing Umar Nurmagomedov. MMA Junkie reports that Lazishvili was not previously booked and will be making his RAF debut. The Dvalishvili vs. Moraes match itself is not new; it was announced earlier this month.
The brawl behind the changes
The lineup change follows Wednesday's brawl at a hotel in Abu Dhabi. According to MMA Junkie, Usman Nurmagomedov approached Dvalishvili from behind while he was being interviewed and slapped him, in what MMA Junkie called apparent retaliation for an earlier incident between the two camps, and a melee followed that was caught on camera. Lazishvili was reported to have helped Dvalishvili during the fight.
MMA Junkie reports that Dvalishvili and Lazishvili were each fined AED 50,000 (about $14,000) and will not serve jail time. The same report says Usman Nurmagomedov and other members of his camp who started the brawl were sentenced to six months in prison, fined AED 300,000 (about $82,000) and will be deported, and that two people who filmed and published the footage also received six-month sentences and fines. The court statement reported by The National did not name the defendants. MMA Junkie also reports that Umar Nurmagomedov was not involved in the altercation.
What the numbers say
Pugna MMA's database lists Dvalishvili at 21-6 and No. 1 at UFC bantamweight (rankings of November 10). His last bout was a five-round unanimous decision loss to Petr Yan in a title fight at UFC 333 on October 24. Moraes is 23-13-1 and has lost his last four bouts listed in our database, all by knockout, most recently against Gabriel Alves Braga at PFL 4 in June 2023.
Faber, the former WEC featherweight champion, is 35-11 in MMA. His last bout in our database was a third-round knockout loss to Yan at UFC 245 in December 2019. Umar Nurmagomedov, No. 5 at UFC bantamweight in our data, most recently lost to Song Yadong by second-round TKO on August 29.
The rest of the card
MiddleEasy lists Khamzat Chimaev against Chris Weidman for the light heavyweight crossover championship as the main event. Weidman replaced the injured Colby Covington earlier in the week. Arman Tsarukyan faces Neiman Gracie in a catchweight crossover co-main event.
RAF Abu Dhabi starts at 8 p.m. Gulf Standard Time on Saturday, November 14 (11 a.m. ET, 4 p.m. UK, 17:00 CET). It streams on Fox Nation in the United States, Starzplay in the Middle East and North Africa, and YouTube in other territories.
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Sources
This article was generated with AI and may contain errors.