Ray Longo fears Merab Dvalishvili's unfixed broken nose could bleed against Petr Yan at UFC 333
Dvalishvili broke his nose in two places in a training accident and chose not to have surgery before Saturday's bantamweight title trilogy in Abu Dhabi.
Merab Dvalishvili goes into his UFC 333 trilogy with Petr Yan on Saturday with a broken nose that has not been fixed, and his coach Ray Longo expects it to bleed.
Dvalishvili broke the nose in two places in a training accident between his defeat to Yan in December and the third fight, and turned down surgery to repair it.
Longo said on the Anik & Florian Podcast that the nose was going to get hit and looked like it would bleed. He said that if the fight was close, Dvalishvili bleeding heavily could affect how it looks, though he was unsure how much, and called it a bit of a problem and said there was nothing the team could do about it now.
His bigger concern is breathing. Longo said he would be more worried if the injury stopped Dvalishvili from doing what he wants to do for the full 25 minutes.
Yan, who took the title from Dvalishvili in that December rematch, said at the UFC 333 press conference that he would break Dvalishvili's nose one more time. Dvalishvili won their first meeting in 2023. The bantamweight title fight is the co-main event in Abu Dhabi, before Alexander Volkanovski defends the featherweight title against Movsar Evloev.
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