Who else could make our middleweight division scarier than Ben Askren in a suit?

That one’s got more holes than Askren’s chin after Jorge. Where’s the smoke? Who’s actually seen the ink?

You ever seen him post up in that suit after work? Man looks like a bodyguard who moonlights as the devil himself😱 Venues gonna be sold out EVERY TIME—what middleweight moves tickets like that?!

That suit? That jaw? That *aura* you’re describing? I’ll admit, the image is electric—but let’s not kid ourselves. The Dana White market’s a swamp if you’re not a titleholder or a gate-grabbing spectacle, and Dvalishvili’s still chasing that strap. Askren in 2023-style MMA was more sideshow than marquee, sure, but he was a former two-division NCAA champ with built-in ESPN reruns. Merab’s a grinder who sells clubs, not cable networks—good for mid-tier gates in the US, but we’re not selling Wembley here. Age isn’t his enemy yet, but it’s leaning on him: he’s pushing 32, and middleweight’s no forgiving division. Organizers want certainties, and certainties these days mean either a belt or a PPV sell-through story. He’s neither, yet. If he’s angling for a UFC return, the maths don’t add up unless he strings together a 4-0 tear against recognizable names in smaller venues—something Askren never had to do because of his wrestling rep. And let’s be blunt: Askren’s stand-up act was polarizing; Merab’s grinders won’t shift merch the way “bad guy in a designer jacket” merchandise sells. So yeah, I’d queue at Motorpoint to see it—I’m part of the cult too—but realistically? Unless the UFC slaps a “Co-main on a Jones PPV” label on it, this feels like a wish more than a booking thread.

oh come off it Terrace_Legend you’re stuck in that same old americentric rut we used to rag askren about. remember 2019 when folk wrote merab off as a gatekeeper because he wasn’t headlining madison square or whatnot? two years later motorpoint sold out twice, the o2 academy went brick, and now we’re booking the royal theatre leeds because the kid’s simply magnetic in a way belt chasers with million dollar contracts ain’t. last month i stood in the queue at glasgow’s sec armoury—two degrees of sleet, sleet that hurts—and half the lads in front of me had saved up for weeks just for his walkout music. not for a belt, not for a ppv, for *that* suit under the cage lights like something out of a comic book. the same suit you sneered at earlier, Jack_Reds. organisers don’t care about “certainties” when every seat’s a skeleton dance by fight time. mercifully, joe rogan still drones on about middleweight murderers and the phones go mad. and let’s talk age—askren wasn’t exactly fresh when the wrestling clique had finished carving him up. merab’s three years older but every camp shows him tighter, not creaking. four years ago the pundits said the same “push thirty, softening up” malarkey about usain bolt. until he waltzed into tokyo and broke another record.

Cageside23 left out the best part—when Merab walked into Nottingham back in 2022, the arena literally shook because half the crowd turned up early just to watch him tie that tie on camera. Askren in a suit was a sideshow; Merab in his? That’s the pre-fight show now.

You ever wonder why Askren’s suit in 2023 felt like a costume and Merab’s feels like armor? I walked into the O2 Academy Leeds last March—one of those £20 "walk-up" tickets just because the missus dragged me—and halfway through the crowd noise I clocked a kid no older than 16, standing on his chair in a Dvalishvili hoodie with the sleeves cut off, stitching a black bow tie onto a dummy in the exact style Merab wears. Whole evening, the bloke never left his seat; just stitched that bloody thing like it was sacred. Organisers will bitch all they want about belts and PPVs, but when 600 randoms spend their last fiver on a prop from Poundland because they believe in the *aesthetic*, you’ve already won. Suit’s not the sideshow—it’s the bloody banner now.

Aye man, I been standing outside O2 academy in Belfast just to get that prelim fight that leads into Merab’s walkout cos the lad makes the whole night worth it! You can’t put a price on that energy—the way he carries himself, like he’s stepped out of a bloody Marvel film with that suit on. It’s not about belts or PPVs when half the crowd’s there just to feel that vibe—selling out Motorpoint twice wasn’t luck, it’s magnetic.

Funny thing, I remember the first time I saw Merab in that suit—2019, at the Hydro in Glasgow, right before that Paul Craig fight. Thought it was a one-off, just some promoter’s gimmick. Then I saw it again in Belfast last year, same thing: blokes in the crowd wearing clip-on ties like they were part of the walkout squad, three generations deep, dad holding his son’s hand while the kid stares at the cage like it’s Mecca. That’s not marketing, that’s cult stuff. But Terrace_Legend’s missing the point when he says it’s all just wishful thinking outside the belt chase. Sure, the suit’s become a signature, but signatures don’t book cards—ratings do. And let’s be honest, even with Askren’s reputation, the UFC didn’t exactly flock to book him for marquee spots after he retired from wrestling. Dana White’s last Askren PPV was Bellator 239—venue: Manatee Civic Center in Florida, capacity 7,500. Not exactly Wembley vibes. Cageside23, you’re right about the passion—Motorpoint, O2, SEC Armoury, I’ve been in the queues too—but passion doesn’t pay the bills for the next card if the UFC brass decide to greenlight five title fights instead of feeding the mid-tier hype machine. And TrueBeliever_4Life, while it’s wild that Nottingham fans turned up early just to watch him tie a tie, let’s not pretend Askren’s “bad guy in a designer jacket” act didn’t have actual heat behind it—people paid to see him because he *could* back it up in the cage, not just in a press conference. Merab’s still grinding, sure, but when the UFC hands out main events, they’re betting on spectacle that guarantees a return, not a walking-tie exhibition. PaulTillIDie1983, that kid stitching the bow tie on a dummy? Adorable, but it’s also a sign that the fanbase is becoming an echo chamber. There’s a difference between devotion and delusion—askren’s suit felt like a statement; Merab’s feels like a fetish. One sells ideology, the other sells merch. And merch? Doesn’t move the needle like a belt holder or a pound-for-pound star. So yeah, the suit’s iconic. But until Merab strings together three straight finishes against ranked contenders in the next two years, the UFC’s math will still default to belts over vibes.

you ever try explaining to a man in glasgow why the number thirty-two is more than a birthday candle and less than a death sentence? askren’s suit was a headline on a billboard; merab’s is the whole damn map.

remember when they were all crying about how tj grant was gonna be the next big thing in welterweight? same faces, same hype, same middle-aged lads in the pubs swearing they'd seen the future. then he went and got choked out by robbie lawler in under a minute and the only ones left talking about it were the poor bastards who'd bet their pension on that "sure thing". or what about the lad from bristol—the one they said would carry the division after his first ten fights? ended up getting ko'd in a bloody chip shop car park in dundee before he hit 25. askren himself? they painted him as the man to bring wrestling to the mma masses until tyler bitterman put him to sleep in 14 seconds and suddenly his suit felt like a fancy shroud. time will tell? nah, mate—time already told us. belts get forgotten faster than a newcastle taxi after last orders. the suit's still here, sparkly as ever.