Merab Dvalishvili doesn’t look like a man content to wait. Days after losing his bantamweight title to Petr Yan at UFC 323, ‘The Machine’ is already back on social media, posting a tongue-in-cheek Instagram carousel that flipped the roles from their careers past and present. He wrote, “And question is what’s gonna happen in 2026?”

Still, behind the memes and the trilogy chatter, reality is setting in. A brutal five-round fight. A year packed with championship pressure. And a body that has absorbed the workload of four title fights in 2025 alone. So when Merab Dvalishvili talks about what comes next, the most important voice right now isn’t his. It’s his coach’s.

Syndicate MMA head coach, John Wood, joined The Ariel Helwani Show recently and pulled back the curtain on what recovery should actually look like for a fighter who ran his body into rare territory in a clip shared on X by Jed I. Goodman.

When asked how long the former champion should be away, Wood didn’t jump straight to dates. He started with something fighters almost never prioritize.

According to him, “You know, personally, I would love to see him take a vacation, know, rest up the body, heal up some things. I’d love to see him, you know, get his mind away from it and come back as hungry.”

His reasoning had nothing to do with motivation. Instead, Wood pointed to the invisible tax of being champion. The extra work doesn’t stop at training as he pointed out, “You know, but at this point in time, like I said, you’re dealing with so much stuff as a champion where you’re doing 10 times the work that you normally have to do, all the press, all of the junkets, all the media, all the interviews, everything. It’s so much more.”

That grind stacks up, even for someone wired like Merab Dvalishvili. As such, Wood’s ideal prescription sounded almost suspiciously normal.

“So, I’d love to just see him just go for a few weeks and take a vacation, go home or sit in his house and build his barn or whatever he’s looking at doing and just relax.” Then he laughed at the idea. “Do I think that’s gonna happen? Probably not.”

That’s the paradox of coaching ‘The Machine’. You can suggest rest. You can argue for patience. But you also know exactly how he’s built.

So Helwani pressed further. If it were truly Wood’s call, how long would the former champion be out? The answer was revealing as he shared, “If I could get him out for, for chilling for a month and relax and take it easy, I think a month would be, would be great. But, you know, uh just… really just not sparring for the next month or two would be, I think, plenty time off.”

Now comes the rebound question. Merab Dvalishvili’s Instagram post teasing his plans for 2026, alongside Petr Yan, wasn’t accidental. The trilogy is already in his mind. But is ‘No Mercy’ willing to grant him that request?

Petr Yan shuts down trilogy talks as he points to a “rematch” with a different opponent for Merab Dvalishvili

Fresh off reclaiming the bantamweight title at UFC 323, Petr Yan sounded like a man in no rush to rewind the story. After delivering one of the sharpest performances of the year and becoming just the third two-time bantamweight champion in UFC history, Yan embraced the moment.

At the post-fight press conference, he said, “It’s an incredible feeling, with rematches, as I said before, I do better. It’s like I’m more intelligent in rematches. And, of course, this [belt] is the motivation.”

That intelligence extended to how he handled questions about Merab Dvalishvili’s next move. Rather than shutting the door, Yan stalled it.

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“I think Merab should really just get into the Jacuzzi, think about it, and then we’ll see,” he said, smiling. It was dismissive on the surface, but strategic underneath. Yan knows that he, as the champion, controls the tempo now.

He also widened the lens. “You saw the fight of Merab vs. Umar [Nurmagomedov]. You saw the way that fight went. So, who’s more dangerous? They can rematch, and then we can see what happens.” In Yan’s view, the queue isn’t clear-cut. Let contenders sort themselves out first.

But there’s history behind that stance. ‘No Mercy’ also reminded everyone how hard his own road back was after losing the belt years ago.

“Understand the fact that for me to get the opportunity to fight for the belt again, the UFC made me go three more fights before I was able to get to the contender position again,” he said. Fairness, to him, isn’t immediate rematches; it’s earning your way back.

So the trilogy remains close enough to see, but not close enough to touch. The question now isn’t if Merab Dvalishvili wants it, he’s made that clear. The real question is whether he’s willing to wait long enough and return smart enough to make Yan say yes. What are your thoughts on a third fight between the pair? Let us know in the comments below!