Merab Dvalishvili’s coach is confident regarding possible Cory Sandhagen fight

Merab Dvalishvili’s coach John Wood has given his thoughts on a possible title fight against Cory Sandhagen.

Last weekend in the main event of UFC 316, Merab Dvalishvili submitted and defeated Sean O’Malley. It served as the final chapter in their rivalry (at least for the time being), with the champion now set to move on to even bigger things. The expectation is that his next challenger will be Cory Sandhagen, who has been on a pretty solid run of form in recent years.

RELATED: Cory Sandhagen gives Sean O’Malley some advice for Merab Dvalishvili rematch

Of course, Sandhagen will be seen as the underdog, especially given how dominant Dvalishvili has looked in his last few fights. Despite that, we all know you can’t take anything for granted in elite mixed martial arts – especially in a division as wild as bantamweight.

In a recent interview, the aforementioned John Wood weighed in on what he would expect if Dvalishvili does in fact defend the strap against Sandhagen.

Wood’s view on Dvalishvili vs Sandhagen

“Cory is a great fighter, and I enjoy watching him,” Wood told Submission Radio. “I think he’s a very entertaining fighter, and I think he’s got a lot of tools, and a lot of things that are going to be tough to deal with. But I do not believe it’s going to be anything different than Merab has seen before. I think it’s stuff we are going to have just a fine time with, and it’ll be a fun fight. But I can tell you this: Merab’s going to come out ahead on that one.

“I feel like we’ve kind of fought that style before. He is a tough guy. He’s tricky. But like I said, I know Merab, and I know what he can do, and I know what we’re going to do. It’s always fun as a coach to game plan against a guy like that. He’s got a great team, great coaches, all that stuff, and it’s interesting. I think stylistically, it works out great for us.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie