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.