Media Umar claims Merab is ducking; He considers fighting someone else before Ramadan

[RockyLockridge]

So this justifies him ducking the No1 contender and deliberately looking to fight in March to avoid Umar.

how is that him ducking? that's Umar ducking not merab.

If merab say yes I wanna fight march, and umar says no, that's umar ducking. Merab shouldn't have to fight on anyone elses schedule. If you're ringing for the champ, you gotta answer the call.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Waiting until after ramadan to defend the title would be holding shit up. Fighting before that is keeping things moving.

Exactly - there is no contender to fight with Suga surgery (doesn’t really deserve anyways) and Yan/Figgy won’t be ready until May after they do a 5 round contender fight in early December (likely to be a war where both guys take a lot of damage because of the style matchup).

I mean if Yan or Figgy sleeps/subs the other quickly it might make sense then to do a title fight in March/April, but that’s highly unlikely.

Also it depends on UAE/Saudi card dates - they needs Muslim stars to headline those so they need Islam/Umar/Chimaev (maybe Belal but not as popular because of his style), so those variables impact the bookings tremendously.