Is Merab Dvalishvili actually the best bantamweight in the UFC history or are we just delusional?

Man, I swear you’d mistake us for living room chumps if we just nodded at all the highlight reels and forgot who actually lined up across the cage when Merab was running the table.

delusional?! mates, nah, they were just *blind* when Merab was running that 2023 train 🚂💨 Seung Woo Choi? dropped in round 1 like he forgot how to breathe 😱 TJ? game over in 133 seconds flat 🕒 Jose Aldo? next-gen MW champ humbled by a man who *actually* trains instead of posing with sponsorships 💪 injuries hit after the belt run — so what?! the man fought, absorbed bumps, and still stood tall while half the division folded like lawn chairs 🪑 half the bangers in 135 just *quit* when the pressure mounted — Merab? took every bad matchup, got rocked, came back meaner 🥊 and where’s Cody Garbrandt now? laughing stock with Munhoz showing him the door 🚪 go rewatch those fights, not some chump’s tweet history... Merab’s rhythm so clean even his *hesitation* feels like a strike 🎵🔥 defenders didn’t fold — they got *bullied*

Merab isn’t running the table because the field happened to have open slots that year. That 2023 gauntlet—the way he processed Choi, Dillashaw and Aldo—wasn’t a gift basket dropped at his door. Choi was fresh off a split decision loss to Jonathan Martinez; Dillashaw was four years removed from his last meaningful win; Aldo had just returned after a 20-month layoff and looked every day of it in that cage. Those three weren’t top-15 gatekeepers they were walking exhibitions with downward momentum. And yet Merab sliced through them like the division’s résumé office had gone on permanent coffee break. Nick_Ultra wants us to “remember who lined up across the cage,” but he’s skipping the part where the men across the cage weren’t exactly world-beaters. The real test of greatness is: can you make the division’s fringe look like regional showmen? Merab did it three times in nine weeks.

ever seen a guy carry a division on his shoulders while the rest of the cast was changing hotel rooms like it was musical chairs back in my day the 145-pound bunch used to step on your toes every time they signed a new deal, now half the roster just vanishes into vapourware before the weigh-ins — except when Merab’s booking a main card think about it like this: when fighters still had to *earn* their spotlight, main-event spots weren’t handed out with a coupon book and a prayer — you had to roughhouse your way up the ladder, absorb bumps, then line up against the bigger fish while the pay-per-view graphs were still flatlining. remember how Dominick Cruz rolled through his own era when every opponent looked fresh off a mattress sale? Merab’s doing the same tune on a global stage but nobody rings the bell for nostalgia anymore. 2023 wasn’t some cosmic joke where the deep cuts lined up like dominoes; it was more like watching a chess player clear a room full of beginners with a single strategy. Choi was already bleeding confidence after Martinez, Dillashaw had spent half the pandemic taking podcast hits instead of leg kicks, Aldo stumbled into the cage like he’d just gotten off a transatlantic flight without coffee. Yet every night Merab walked in, switched to absolute mode, and sent them home staring at the ceiling wondering how the hell they misread the map. we keep hearing “injuries” like it’s an alibi, but if injuries disqualify greatness then the entire bantamweight division should retire to a spa in Boca Raton. what i notice is Merab keeps coming back to the gym with a spring in his step while half the locker room just disappeared down the rabbit hole of “next big thing” media tours. that rhythm he carries — steady, relentless, almost boring to watch live — it’s not some highlight-reel parlor trick; it’s the sound of a craftsman ignoring the fads and stacking work while the neighbors are still arguing over whose six-pack abs Instagram filter is cooler.

well well well the only thing that’s steady here is how every time Merab drops three finishes in a row we get served the same lukewarm casserole of excuses masquerading as analysis—like last night’s chip shop chips reheated in the microwave. let me paint you a picture from the cheap seats: remember Henry Cejudo’s 2019 title run? the man carved through Marlon Moraes and Dominick Cruz in eight months flat, both of them genuinely dangerous threats at the time. Cejudo didn’t get a holiday gift basket of washed-up veterans—he ate through actual contenders while the whole division paused for a commercial break. now fast-forward to our main man: Seung Woo Choi before that 2023 beating? off two losses, one to a guy who got ko’d by a journeyman in his next fight. TJ Dillashaw in that window? his last win was against a 38-year-old Cody Garbrandt at 135 lbs—yeah the same Garbrandt who’s now the poster boy for “what could’ve been.” and Jose Aldo? 20 months out of the cage equals roughly two generations of belt chasers aging out. sure you can decorate the room when the walls are made of cardboard but that don’t make you an architect. in 2024 Merab steps back in against someone who actually knows what day it is—say Cory Sandhagen after his rough lesson with Aljamain Sterling—and suddenly we’re all clutching our pearls like we’ve never seen a banger catch a fade. injuries? fine. but let’s stop pretending the CV of opponents is anything more exotic than a stack of IOUs from the same bunch who wouldn’t book a main card in a bingo hall. Merab’s rhythm is beautiful until the music stops and the lights come on; then we’ll see if the metronome still ticks.

Look, I’ve rewatched the Aldo fight about six times this month, and you know what hits different now? The commentary team kept calling him “old” the whole night—same ones who spent 2021 pretending Petr Yan could still read a cage—yet in round two Merab catches him clean with a left hand while Aldo’s arms are still glued to his sides like he’s dodging imaginary teargas. Next thing you see? Jose on the deck, staring at the lights like someone just powered down the stadium. That’s not beating an “exhibition,” that’s making a legend forget how to park himself upright. And after that, when Dillashaw walked out—still got the custom walkout with the sneer, the whole package—and Merab drops him inside the first clinch like it was a casualty drill? The man’s hands are surgical. No flair, no theatrics, just a surgeon closing incisions before you even realise you’re bleeding.

Funny how the sceptics keep circling back to the same two slides from Merab’s highlight reel—until you actually flip them over. Take that clip of Jose Aldo: the pundits were already typing his retirement speech before the cage even touched gloves, yet every time you rewatch you see the left hand plant clean on Aldos temple before his legs even catch up. That isn’t luck. That’s a read so sharp it looks like a glitch in the tape. And then there’s the week before the belt fight when TJ Dillashaw got dropped in two minutes flat—same guy who barely scraped past a 38-year-old Garbrandt at 135, remember? Back then TJ was selling masterclasses on YouTube while Merab was still bench-pressing his way through another leg workout at Unity. Twelve months later the roles look reversed, and suddenly everyone wants a free biology lesson on atrophy. The real question isn’t whether the opposition was soft—though God knows the bantamweight backlog in 2023 read like a pop quiz most guys flunked—but what Merab does with the rest of his trilogy once the grind is back on. Injuries? Fine. But when the next gatecrashers line up with resumes longer than their necks, we’ll find out if rhythm alone is enough to keep the music playing.