UFC president Dana White hasn’t always approved of the choices made by his promotion’s current bantamweight champion, Merab Dvalishvili.

A contentious relationship between the pair began years ago when the now 34-year-old Dvalishvili was adamant he would never fight best friend/training partner Aljamain Sterling despite the latter then holding the championship in his weight class. Even after that hurdle was cleared with Sterling losing the belt and moving up in weight, White took exception to some of Dvalishvili’s social media antics over the years.

So, when Dvalishvili immediately began campaigning for another title defense before the end of the year after defeating Cory Sandhagen in October at T-Mobile Arena, some expected White to be dismissive of the idea. Instead, White shocked many

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