- Head-to-head: Merab won 2023 by unanimous decision with relentless wrestling; Yan won 2025 by unanimous decision after his 85% takedown defence held up
- Yan's lumbar disc surgery is a real risk against 5.84 takedowns per 15 minutes and constant clinch pressure
- Merab has a full camp this time after saying he was injured and overworked (4 fights in 2025) for UFC 323
- Market 60% Yan vs Elo 54% Merab. The market accounts for the rematch result, Elo doesn't, so I lean market but shade toward Merab
Write-up
The market has Yan at 60% (-178), drifting 1 point toward Merab. Elo has Merab at 54%, mostly because of his career body of work (15-3 in the UFC, with wins over O'Malley twice, Umar Nurmagomedov and Sandhagen). Elo doesn't account for the fact that the most recent meeting went clearly Yan's way: a unanimous decision at UFC 323. There Yan's 85% takedown defence and switch-stance counters stopped the chain wrestling that beat him in 2023. I end up between the two priors. Two documented factors pull me below the market. First, Yan had lumbar disc surgery after UFC 323 and only showed training footage in August 2026. A back problem is especially risky against a fighter who averages 5.84 takedowns per 15 minutes and wins by grinding through clinch and wall wrestling. Second, Merab says he fought the rematch injured, after his fourth fight in roughly 10 months; this time he gets a full 316-day camp built around Yan. On the other side, Yan has the cleaner striking (53% vs 42% accuracy, 5.14 significant strikes per minute) and has now shown he can make Merab's entries cost him. Merab will be 35. Both fighters rarely finish each other and their two fights were 50 combined minutes of decisions, so a decision is very likely either way. The surgery news is old and probably priced in, so I only shade a few points below the market.
- Market favors Yan at 61%; Elo favors Dvalishvili at 54%
- Yan won their latest meeting, but supplied head-to-head results are split
- Yan's striking accuracy and takedown defense versus Dvalishvili's wrestling volume
- Dvalishvili has stronger common-opponent results
- Decision-heavy recent records and comparable layoffs
Write-up
Starting from Yan's supplied 61% market probability, I reduce slightly to 59% because opponent-adjusted Elo favors Dvalishvili 54, 46 and common-opponent results favor him. Yan's latest head-to-head decision victory, four consecutive decision wins and stronger Elo improvement support siding with the market. His 53% striking accuracy and 85% takedown defense offer a credible path against Dvalishvili's high takedown output, although their earlier meeting went the other way. Both have roughly ten-month layoffs, providing no clear relative disadvantage and remaining below the specified 450-day risk threshold. Recent results strongly favor a decision; incomplete and inconsistent historical fields limit certainty. Round 3 assumes a three-round bout because scheduled length is unspecified. Method probabilities describe the bout overall.