Merab Dvalishvili suffered a broken pinky toe just two weeks ahead of his bantamweight title defense against former 135-pound champion, Sean O’Malley, a rematch from their UFC 306 showdown that saw “The Machine” shut down “Suga” and capture the crown.
Fortunately, the toe injury is not expected to interfere with the champ’s return, even though it was enough to completely derail the long-overdue pay-per-view (PPV) fight between Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler after “Notorious” suffered the same injury.
“He loves to rile everybody up,” coach John Wood told Submission Radio. “The thing is, as much as people think, ‘oh, that’s stupid or this or that,’ he would never post something that was going to take him out of a fight. So guys, if he’s posting something it’s really not that bad and it’s not going to bother him that bad.”
When Wood says “people” he’s likely referring to this longtime critic.
“I’m sure he broke his toe but like you don’t understand, every camp and every fighter, even O’Malley says it, everybody is banged up,” Wood continued. “There’s a level of injuries you go into fights with. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s going to be, and that’s the way it always is. It’s just one of those things, obviously, Merab likes to post about a little more than everybody else. It’s alright, though. He’s all good.”
So too, is O’Malley — based on this recent admission.
“You don’t want any injuries, that’s the deal — obviously,” Wood said. “We’d love to go into a camp and be injury free but that just doesn’t happen. That [toe is] nothing compared to a lot of the things we’ve had going into fights. He’s had some massive injuries going into some massive fights before and been banged up. Broken ribs and backs complete out of whack, but that’s just the way it goes. He’s going to show up and do his job no matter what. You’ll have to kill him to keep him out of the cage. He’s so game day, he’s so ready to go.”
Dvalishvili (19-4) battles O’Malley (18-2, 1 NC) atop the UFC 316 fight card on June 7 in Newark.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
