Let's not forget the hilariously delusional narrative that Merab was "ducking" Umar

[RockyLockridge]

You can't see how the contrary come ups made it an agitating situation for Merab?

He literally had to clear out a division to get a title fight, and they still passed him up for journeymen scrub Chito Vera and made him wait for that.

Umar - goes from fighting unranked guys to getting a red carpet rolled out for him on a Sandhagen fight, with Dana confirming instantly after that Umar gets the next shot.

You and many others are really confusing Merab's words and statements for ducking.

Preach

 

[StanTheMan]

hindsight is 20/20, at the time merab was raging at reporters and fans who asked about umar and merab weirdly talked about fighting figgy even though he didn't beat anyone as good as sandhagen like Umar. Merab proved he wasn't scared of umar and is a better fighter but let's not act like he wasn't behaving weirdly prior to taking the fight

Yea it was fucking bizarre. He even stormed out of an interview because the interviewer wanted to discuss Umar. He has great cardio though!

 

[DomiDomi]

You can't see how the contrary come ups made it an agitating situation for Merab?

He literally had to clear out a division to get a title fight, and they still passed him up for journeymen scrub Chito Vera and made him wait for that.

Umar - goes from fighting unranked guys to getting a red carpet rolled out for him on a Sandhagen fight, with Dana confirming instantly after that Umar gets the next shot.

You and many others are really confusing Merab's words and statements for ducking.

Why would Merab care so much?

Firstly, it was his own fault he didn't get a title shot for years because he didn't want to fight the champion. So he got overlooked once in favour of Chito, if he's annoyed about that, he needs to take that up with the UFC on why they did that, it has nothing to do with Umar. It's not Umar's fault Chito got a shot over Merab.

If Umar didn't deserve the shot, then the people who should be annoyed are the people who do deserve the shot. It's not Merab's job to care if Sean or Yan are being unfairly overlooked for the title shot (they weren't).

If anything, Merab should want a fresh challenge rather than somebody he's already beat.


The most likely explanation for why he was so against fighting Umar is he has some sort of nationalistic hatred of Russians and hates the possibility of losing to them, or thinks Umar is his most difficult match up, even if he thinks he can beat him, he'd rather have some easier title defences.

 

[bigfootsbreath]

The khabibabies are just bathtub bullies. No wonder why khabib ran away at 32. Will Umar one up him and run away at 30?

 

[MarioLemieux]

It was Merab's hardest fight as champ by far.

 

[ocfightfan]

Yeah any time people are not getting the fight they want they start imputing bad motives to the fighter they dislike/like less. They don't care about the actual details and reasons, which may not have anything to do with fighter A ducking fighter B.

 

[bjjwar]

Well because he clearly was and had reasons too. It showed in their fight, when both still had cardio he was getting easily beaten…

 

[Kevster]

Pointing out someone had a favourable route to a title shot (something nobody has been able to deny) doesn’t mean Merab was ducking, won the title in September, defended it in January.


His turnaround was shorter than the challenger ffs.

 

[Grrrr]

Well because he clearly was and had reasons too. It showed in their fight, when both still had cardio he was getting easily beaten…

Championship fights aren’t 2 rds(1 judge gave rd 1 to Merab). So “easily” is a strange word to use.
Anyhow.
Umar showed up…tried…and lost.
He can rack up a couple more wins and try again.

 

[Alpha_T83]

"I don't want to fight him! He doesn't deserve it! I want a rematch with other guys I beat easily!"

Ever heard of trolling? Merab was just fucking with him.

I've got a bridge to sell you if you believe everything you read.

 

[Rapa]

He did try to duck him, pretty blatantly, then when Umar said he's been out with a broken hand and didn't have time for a camp to fight in January, suddenly Merab shows up in Dana's office 3 days later and says he wants the fight in January. He also looked scared for the first half of the fight and lost in every aspect, and didn't even have the confidence for his usual spam TD attempt plan until halfway through when Umar broke his hand and was getting tired, and even then all he was able to was spam shots that either got stuffed or he popped right back up.

Try to hurt ur leg and back and then try to do even one takedown when ur opponent is fresh u dumb

 

[nostradumbass]

Try to hurt ur leg and back and then try to do even one takedown when ur opponent is fresh u dumb

Was that supposed to be English?

 

[bjjwar]

Championship fights aren’t 2 rds(1 judge gave rd 1 to Merab). So “easily” is a strange word to use.
Anyhow.
Umar showed up…tried…and lost.
He can rack up a couple more wins and try again.

Of course, i just meant Merab had reasons to duck him. If Umar had better cardio he would have easily beaten Merab bc Merab is worse at everything and it showed when both were fresh. But yeah, its a 5 round fight, if you cant keep up the pace its your fault, doesnr matter if you’re clearly the better fighter.

 

[Rapa]

Was that supposed to be English?

 

[AMAZINGUFC]

Merab - winning his fight in September, not only accepted the fight on a relatively short around to fight Umar, but also had a back injury that was effecting him, still accepted the fight. 28 stitches in his leg essentially giving him all the reason he needs if he wanted to pull out ? Nope, literally fooled the CASC by showing the same leg twice, pulled a Bisping.

A lot of smooth brains seemed to misinterpret Merab calling out Umar for getting an easy path up the rankings and an easy path to the title as "ducking". Merab - the guy who literally had to clear out the division before he got a shot, was very vocal about Umar's "privilege" with his last name and never in anyway stated that he wasn't down to fight him.

Literally just watched a Javier Mendez interview where he essentially blamed the entire loss on Umar's broken hand, yet apparently all the stuff Merab was battling in his camp was totally irrelevant.. His camp is DELUSIONAL.

Dagestani moron fanboys really outdid themselves with this one how it all turned out.

The fact that he won doesn't change the fact that he was. And the fear proved right because Umar won 2 rounds.

 

[Tweak896]

Umar gave Merab a tougher fight than Sean, Yan, or Figgy would in the same night. If Umar won 1 more round he probably would've won. In fact he did so well there's probably no one else besides Umar that would have closer odds against Merab even now. Also Merab was asking for easy fights and pretending Umar wasn't on his level.

 

[Doctor Grudge]

hindsight is 20/20, at the time merab was raging at reporters and fans who asked about umar and merab weirdly talked about fighting figgy even though he didn't beat anyone as good as sandhagen like Umar. Merab proved he wasn't scared of umar and is a better fighter but let's not act like he wasn't behaving weirdly prior to taking the fight

Figgy had two ranked wins and a championship pedigree in a neighboring division. He is much more accomplished than Umar is. Umar didn't even deserve his fight with Sandhagen in the first place, he got that one because of his last name also.

There is nothing weird about thinking Figgy should have been the next contender. If Figgy was a more popular fighter that is exactly what would have happened.

Figgy had to fight Font, Chito, and Yan to earn a title shot (assuming he got one if he got past Yan), and that's with him being the flyweight champion for most of the decade.

 

[Ace70 V2]

I like how Javier said that he was surprised by Merab's cardio. What the fuck did they train for? Cardio is his main strength in my opinion.

 

[Siver!]

It seems an easy way to hype and build a fight. Tell everyone you don't want to defend against x opponent, everyone gets worked up about "losing" a great fight, then just take the fight and beat them.

Psychology 101