Video shows Merab Dvalishvili attacked by Usman Nurmagomedov and others at RAF event in Abu Dhabi

The fight that matters now is not the one Dvalishvili was scheduled to have. Three days before facing Marlon Moraes at Real American Freestyle Abu Dhabi, the former UFC bantamweight champion says he was attacked in a hotel lobby by Usman Nurmagomedov and a group of associates.

Dvalishvili was giving an interview for RAF when several people approached from behind, according to his account and a 37-second video that Ilia Topuria posted before deleting it. The footage shows Dvalishvili turning toward Usman, who appears to strike him, before a melee breaks out. Dvalishvili and his friend were bloodied and bruised; The National reports that Dvalishvili had at least one cut to his head. Medics attended to him in a video he later shared from social media.

The Georgian said he was fine and called the attackers cowards. His accusation was more specific than the footage alone can establish: he wrote that Usman, Umar Nurmagomedov and their friends came from behind, that multiple people held him and his friend down, and that others kicked them while security personnel were trying to restrain the situation. He estimated that roughly 20 people were involved. Neither Usman nor Umar had publicly responded by the time of reporting, and RAF had been contacted for comment.

That distinction matters. The video corroborates a violent confrontation involving Usman and Dvalishvili; it does not independently verify every part of Dvalishvili's account, including the number of participants, the roles of individual associates or what happened once the group was on the ground. The available evidence is therefore strongest on the fact of the melee and weakest on the finer points of who did what during it.

The incident lands on a rivalry with history rather than in a vacuum. Dvalishvili defeated Umar by unanimous decision at UFC 311 in January 2025, handing the older Nurmagomedov brother his first professional defeat. The two were involved in another confrontation before UFC Georgia, and Dvalishvili has since lost a unanimous decision to Petr Yan at UFC 333. Umar is scheduled to wrestle Urijah Faber on the same RAF Abu Dhabi card. Usman, a former PFL lightweight champion now described as a free agent, is not on the card but has attended his brother's bouts.

The practical consequence is immediate. Dvalishvili is booked to wrestle Moraes at Etihad Arena on Saturday, and his ability to compete is uncertain with visible head injuries and a fight three days away. He has not withdrawn, and he has publicly insisted that he is well. The National notes that RAF Abu Dhabi is the promotion's first card in the Middle East, which raises the cost of a late change to the card.

The larger issue is what the confrontation reveals about the Nurmagomedov family's public image. The current episode echoes that history, but the resemblance should not be mistaken for equivalence: this was an attack on a fighter and his friend during an interview, not a post-fight celebration. Dvalishvili's central complaint was precisely that the confrontation was not a sanctioned fight.

For now, the decisive unanswered questions are whether Dvalishvili can wrestle on Saturday and whether the accused fighters or RAF will provide an account of the lobby melee. Until then, the video establishes that the Abu Dhabi card has been overshadowed by an incident that its fighters say was an ambush, not a rivalry settled in the ring.