Cory Sandhagen just called out Merab Dvalishvili and Aljamain Sterling loved it.
‘I Loved The Cory Sandhagen Call-Out’
Sandhagen threw his name in the hat to fight the #1 contender after largely dominating Chito Vera in the main event of UFC San Antonio. Watching the fight from cageside, both Dvalishvili and Sterling were fans of ‘The Sandman’s’ rather cheesy call-out.
“I loved the Cory Sanhagen call out over Merab cause he’s a quiet guy,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really put himself out there. But it’s nice to have characters in the division…
“I did enjoy that call-out. He was saying that he’s hungry, so he’s got something for Merab to eat and it’s not food (laughs). I guess he’s talking about his hands and his knees and stuff like that. So, Merab after his last fight against Yan, he said he’s hungry, give him anybody. So, this is a fun matchup and I’d like to see this happen.”
Sterling Breaks Down Dvalishvili vs. Sandhagen
It might take a while before we see Dvalishvili square off with Sandhagen, however Sterling is already locking in his early predictions for his teammate’s fight.
“I’m gonna give my early predictions,” Sterling said. “I think round one, Moab takes him down multiple times. The difference is keeping him down. But I think seeing how Sandhagen slowed down in rounds 3, 4 and even 5, I can see how Merab can break him. I think that would be the difference in that type of matchup, that pace, that style and keeping Cory on his back foot.
“You even notice with Chito when Sandhagen was pressing forward and Chito’s on his back foot, he couldn’t really kick the way that he wanted to, couldn’t let them things fly. But the moment that he let Chito press forward and some of the rounds 3, 4 and mostly 5, he was able to get off some of those kicks a little bit more and find more range and find a home for those strikes a little bit more often. But when you push a guy like that backwards between Chito and Sandhagen, they’re forced to just use their boxing predominantly.
Sterling continued in his analysis.
“That’s the difference. So keep ’em on the back foot time those takedowns. And if you don’t get the takedowns come up with strikes off the break and just mix it up, you mix it up better, you are usually gonna win the fight. And whoever has the better gas tank, which we all know ‘The Machine’ is the machine for a reason. I like that matchup.
“So if Cory’s feeling froggy, let’s go. We can line that one up too. Let me do my job here with Henry in six weeks and we’ll see what happens with the division, how everything’s playing out.”
