According to the announcement from UFC, Merab Dvalishvili will protect the Bantamweight UFC belt at the UFC 320 event. This big event is scheduled in October. The opponent of Merab Dvalishvili is a 'sand' Cory Sandhagen, a information that can surprise many people.
A year ago, Cory Sandhagen lost to Umar Nurmagomedov in the match that decided to challenge UFC belt. After that, he had a victory over Deiveson Figueededo in May this year. At that time, Deiveson Figueededo had a knee injury in the second half and had to give up.
In the past, Cory Sandhagen was highly appreciated, but he failed in the key matches before fighting. This boxer has lost to Aljamain Sterling, TJ Dillashaw and Petr Yan. He has only returned to Thang Mach since 2022, when he won the last 4/5 matches.
The Cory Sandhagen was struggled with Merab Dvalishvili in the context of Umar Nurmagomedov's health in the context of not really guaranteed. After Umar lost to Merab earlier this year, it was reported that the Russian boxer was injured, and the recovery progress was quite slow.
On the Bantamweight UFC ranking, the boxers ranked on Cory Sandhagen include Sean O'Malley, Umar Nurmagomedov and Petr Yan. They all faced Merab Dvalishvili in the past and failed. Therefore, Merab is expected to have a belt protection that is not too difficult.