They call Merab Dvalishvili “The Machine” for his relentless cardio.
Make no mistake: The Georgian professional, scheduled to defend his bantamweight title against Sean O’Malley in the main event at UFC 316, is not only a fierce competitor but is also known for his unusual eating habits, which include consuming food intended for animals.
During a UFC remote filming session last year at Point Pleasant, N.J., Kayla Harrison, who is challenging Julianna Peña for the women’s bantamweight crown Saturday night at Prudential Center, observed firsthand the time Dvalishvili, with his characteristic cheerfulness, ate a whole fish. This wasn’t a typical salmon dish; it was a fish designated for the penguins at Jenkinson’s Aquarium.
“He’s absolutely insane,” Harrison recounted to The Post in the days leading up to the Newark event. “He was eating the sardines, or the fish that we were giving to the penguins. He literally ate one. I was like, ‘You’re an animal.’ ”
Dvalishvili, despite English not being his first language, has found a way to connect with fans thanks to his friendly demeanor and his humbleness — not to mention the silly social-media videos he frequently produces, a staple of the lead-up to his capture of O’Malley’s UFC gold last September that returned ahead of their rematch.
Those clips generally are planned and canned, but the 34-year-old may be even funnier in moments of spontaneity.
In the case of sampling the penguins’ snack, the former New York construction worker, who still owns homes in Long Island and Nevada, says he was just “a little bit hungry.”
“I guess these penguins [were] full, and they [were] not hungry. The food we [were] giving, it was small fish — washed, clean,” Dvalishvili recalled to The Post earlier this week. “I was a little bit hungry, you know. They [were] not hungry. I was hungry, and I ate healthy food, which was the fish.”
Dvalishvili and Harrison — who were joined that day at Jenkinson’s Boardwalk by former two-division champion Alex Pereira and Hall of Famer Robbie Lawler — bumped into one another again between Post interviews in Morristown, N.J., and posed for a photo, with Harrison locking in a rear-naked choke grip on the champ.
The moment was a callback to when they first met at a 2016 judo event in New York.
They’ve come a long way since Dvalishvili’s own fledgling mixed martial arts career was off to a rocky 2-2 start and Harrison hadn’t even transitioned from the realm of Olympic-level judo to MMA. Now, they’re UFC stars sharing the same stage on pay-per-view.
“So many things change in nine years,” says Dvalishvili, whose first martial art was judo, “and we are in here now.”
