Merab Dvalishvili has never been the kind of athlete to hide behind careful answers, and a recent lie detector test proved exactly that. Sitting down with Aviator for a question-and-answer session strapped to a polygraph, the former UFC bantamweight champion let the machine do the talking on some of the most pointed questions in MMA.
The moment that stood out came when Merab was asked whether the UFC has treated him unfairly. He answered “no” with confidence, only for the machine to flag it immediately as a lie.
“Yeah. Okay. Maybe,” Merab said, acknowledging what the polygraph had already revealed.
He then confirmed what many fans have long suspected. When asked directly if the UFC protects certain athletes, Merab answered without hesitation: “Yes.” The lie detector confirmed it was the truth.
His relationship with Dana White came up as well. When asked if he is afraid of his boss, Merab pushed back on the framing.
“He’s my boss, you know, but not afraid. He’s cool, even sometimes he don’t like me. I’m fine. I still do crazy things, you know.” The machine read that as true.
Beyond the business side of the UFC, Merab gave a candid look at his life inside and outside the cage. He admitted to hiding injuries ahead of matches, including a broken bone sustained during his first matchup against Petr Yan and a knee injury heading into a later bout.
“UFC doctor called me, they told me I can’t pull out from the m match. I tell them, please don’t tell anyone that I have a knee injury,” he said.
He also revealed that there is an athlete he genuinely cannot stand, though he stopped short of naming names.
“I h*te him. He’s a little spoiled baby,” Merab said. When asked if there is someone in the UFC he never wants to see again, he replied, “Maybe same guy.”
On a lighter note, Merab opened up about growing up in a village as a self-described street boy, admitting he stole fruit, copper, and aluminum as a kid.
“Nothing like crazy. But I never robbed a bank or anything,” he said, drawing laughter from those in the room.
When asked whether he would trade his UFC championship for Georgia’s national football team qualifying for the World Cup, Merab initially said yes, only for the lie detector to catch another moment of false modesty.
“I’ll be selfish. No. I’m sorry. Sorry, Georgian soccer team,” he said. “You guys have to work hard, you know.”
