Dvalishvili praised Topuria for turning down the fight against O'Malley

No. 1 ranked UFC lightweight division Merab Dvalishvili commented on the reluctance of category champion Ilia Topuria to fight Sean O'Malley.

"Ilia is a real champion, a real man, and of course he is my brother and I love him. Of course he did the right thing. I don't talk to him after fights, I know he's crazy busy and he knows I'm busy. We're all doing really well in life. We're training, improving, but, you know, we always support each other.

I plan to meet him in a couple weeks either in Georgia or Spain and we'll have a good time together and we won't have to talk about all this stuff. He knows what real men are supposed to do and he does what he's supposed to do. He is a good guy and a good champion, and I love him," BJPenn.com quoted Dvalishvili as saying.

As a reminder, last weekend O'Malley defeated Marlon Vera by unanimous decision of the judges and defended the flyweight title for the first time. The fight took place at UFC 299 in Miami.