With chants of “White Papakha vs Black Papakha”, Umar Nurmagomedov has glued his focus on the bantamweight championship belt. However, the newly crowned champion of the division doesn’t deem him worthy of a title shot. Instead, he named Deiveson Figueiredo as a fighter who was more deserving. 

Figueiredo began his MMA journey from the flyweight division and even became the undisputed champion. However, with his feats in the bantamweight division, he has yet to attain an opportunity to display his fighting prowess in a title fight. This has indeed created a giant uproar in the Dagestani team. After all, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team wants nothing but to dominate the bantamweight realm. Now, as the world of mixed martial arts wonders about Merab Dvalishvili’s next opponent, ‘Figgy’ has come up with a response for Team Khabib.

Deiveson Figueiredo responds to Team Khabib by validating his fighting credentials

Via The Ariel Helwani Show, the former 2-time UFC flyweight champion revealed his thoughts on Nurmagomedov striving for the bantamweight championship belt. Needless to say, the Brazilian mixed martial artist believed that he was indeed the better choice to face Merab Dvalishvili. After all, he has defeated quite a few former UFC champions and has proven his worth on multiple occasions. 

Figgy said, “Well, I’m a guy who come up from flyweight with a big name as a former champion. Umar is an up-and-coming kid, he has very good potential and I’m sure that in the near future he’ll win the belt. But I’m the real deal, right? All the fans know me for sure and I’m a guy who’s never fought weak people. I’ve always fought strong people and I’ve gone up to the top category facing the best. And now I feel 100% ready to fight for the belt.”

On the other hand, Nurmagomedov has exerted confidence in being the bantamweight king’s next opponent. ‘The Eagle’s cousin believes that his undefeated trend as a professional MMA fighter will play a giant role in getting him a title shot. Even his coach, Javier Mendez, and the former undefeated lightweight champion himself claimed that Umar Nurmagomedov was ready for the title shot. 

However, “The Machine’ was of a different opinion. He was the one who pointed out how strong Figueiredo actually was, and why he deserved the title shot.

Merab Dvalishvili snubs Umar Nurmagomedov for ‘Figgy’

Talking to MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn, Dvalishvili took a stand for Figueiredo because of his UFC record. He said, “I think next title fight Deiveson Figueiredo deserves to fight for the belt. He beat one former champion in this weight class, one title challenger, and he beat Rob Font. And Figueiredo is a former champion, and he has a big name and he deserves it.”

But why didn’t he opt to go against Nurmagomedov? Well, it was all because the ‘Young Eagle’ had only one win against a top 15 fighter. It was indeed the win over Cory Sandhagen back in August 2024. Nevertheless, Nurmagomedov isn’t someone who would back down from the fight. He announced that he was next in line and hoped that Dvalishvili’s team wouldn’t run away from him. And as far as the champ’s decision was concerned, the ‘Young Eagle’ dragged in Ilia Topuria, who got a title fight after defeating just one top 5 contender. 

The MMA realm is simply waiting for an official announcement to be made. Would it be Figueiredo, or Nurmagomedov, that Dvalishvili would fight next? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.