Dvalishvili to appeal controversial UFC Atlantic City loss to Simon
Merab Dvalishvili aims to claim a victory he believes was taken away from him this past weekend.
The bantamweight stated he and his team will appeal the controversial TKO loss he suffered at Ricky Simon's hands during UFC Fight Night 128 in Atlantic City to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board in a Monday appearance on "The MMA Hour."
Dvalishvili was ahead on the scorecards heading into the third round and appeared destined for his first UFC victory when Simon trapped him in a mounted guillotine choke with just under a minute to go. The Serra-Longo man appeared to have briefly gone out when his head hit the canvas upon taking Simon down, but he never tapped to the submission hold and kept moving his feet to convince referee Liam Kerrigan he was still conscious until fight's end. However, his efforts to gut his way to the final horn were ultimately met with a TKO loss - not a technical submission, oddly - as the presiding officials deemed Dvalishvili unconscious when it sounded.
Despite cageside referee Marc Goddard's claims to the contrary, the Georgia native maintained he'd never succumbed to the choke.
"I know I have to just wait one minute, and when time’s over, I win. And that’s what I did," Dvalishvili said. "I showed the referee I’m good, I’m fine. I was moving my feet, I showed everyone I’m good. And when the referee tried to touch me (to see if I’m conscious) and he told me to 'show me your hands,' I showed him my hands, whatever, my eyes, everything. I was in. I never was out, so I feel very bad. And I took my time, I was ready for when time was over, and finally, thank God, time was over.
"(The referee) said, 'Oh, he’s out.' I said, 'I’m not out, I’m in. What are you talking about?' I tried to stand up, and as soon as I started to stand up, the doctors were coming and they told me to stay down, stay down. Of course, the fight was over, I knew I won and I trusted the doctors and I stayed down, and a couple seconds later I said, 'I’m fine, I’m good, can I stand up now?' They said, 'No, stay down, stay down.'"
The verdict rendered Dvalishvili winless in two walks to the Octagon, although he aims to see this defeat overturned once his manager formally files the appeal with the event's sanctioning body. It wasn't all bad for the 27-year-old, who pocketed an extra $50K in Fight of the Night honors and claimed UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby was open to having him and Simon run it back to close the book on the fiasco.
- With h/t to MMA Fighting