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Merab Dvalishvili has become one of the few UFC fighters to establish a friendship with legendary football center-back Sergio Ramos. 'The Machine' shared the details of how he and Ramos first encountered each other, as well as the nature of their friendship during an interview with The Schmo.
One of the greatest central defenders in football history, Ramos has won every team trophy there is to win at both club level and the international level as well, with several La Liga, Copa Del Rey, UEFA Champions League, and European Championship titles, along with one World Cup trophy.
Naturally, Dvalishvili hailed the Spanish legend as one of football's greatest-ever players.
"Yeah, Sergio Ramos is such a cool guy. He's friends with Ilia Topuria and then I became friends with him too. I was in his country visiting him. I bring some UFC gear, he loves UFC. He always, after fight or before fight, always texts me, supports me. And he's, we all know he's the soccer GOAT, football GOAT. Much respect for him."
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Check out Merab Dvalishvili touching on his friendship with Sergio Ramos (7:43):
Ramos is also known for his close and more visible friendship with former featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, whom he has turned up cage-side to support. It remains to be seen if Ramos will be present at UFC 316 to support Dvalishvili in his upcoming bantamweight title defense.
The Georgian star faces Sean O'Malley in a rematch of their UFC 306 encounter, which saw him dethrone 'Sugar' as the 135-pound king. Since then, he has defended the belt once, handing Umar Nurmagomedov his first-ever professional loss at UFC 311.
Merab Dvalishvili is also good friends with Mark Zuckerberg
Besides Sergio Ramos, Merab Dvalishvili has also struck up a friendship with tech billionaire and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the latter of whom was cage-side for his dominant win over ex-UFC double champion Henry Cejudo at UFC 298. It was one of many examples of Zuckerberg's interest in MMA.
Another celebrity that 'The Machine' has interacted with is comedy actor Kevin James, who once recounted to Joe Rogan on episode #2116 of the JRE podcast that Dvalishvili dragged him to his limit in a sparring session.
