The American Kickboxing Academy sits in San Jose, California, an hour south of my home in San Francisco. Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team has trained there for years. San Jose is also home to the largest Georgian community in the Bay Area. Remember that geography. It matters more than the Nurmagomedovs seem to think. If this feud has a next round, it is likelier to be fought here than in the United Arab Emirates.
On Wednesday, in a hotel lobby in Abu Dhabi, Merab Dvalishvili, the Georgian former UFC bantamweight champion, was giving an interview ahead of a Real American Freestyle wrestling event. Usman Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s cousin and a free agent widely expected to sign with the UFC, came up from behind with a group of men. Video shows Usman slapping him. In the brawl that followed, Merab was left bloodied, and his friend, the 21-year-old Georgian wrestler Saba Lazishvili, was hurt.
