Merab Dvalishvili has vowed not to kiss Umar Nurmagomedov after pulling the hilarious stunt in his last fight.
During the main event of UFC 306, Dvalishvili was in a dominant position over Sean O'Malley on route to winning his bantamweight title. And with seconds left in the round, he goaded his rival by kissing him multiple times on the back before referee Herb Dean warned him against the move.
This time around at UFC 311, there appears to be a much more heated feud between the two title contenders, and such antics won't be taking place. Instead, Dvalishvili insists that he will just be punching his way to victory.
While Merab Dvalishvili has never been particularly friendly with his opponents, his feud with Umar Nurmagomedov appears to be on another level. The pair have almost come to blows, and they even were told to spread out their training times in order to avoid run-ins at the UFC Performance Institute.
Speaking with Bloody Elbow in an exclusive chat as part of his partnership with Stake, the bantamweight champion explained: "Nurmagomedov is actually cocky. That's his problem. He thinks that he got this one easy, but he never faced me.
"And believe me he will know on the night. He will realize that he's going to fight me and he will be humble. I have never said that he's not a good fighter. I say he's a good fighter, but he takes shortcuts, you know.
"He cheated a little bit because he was fighting nobodies and guys on their debut. And then from debut guy, he fought number two, you know, that's, that's a gift and that's a shortcut. And that's not how you want to earn your title fight.
"That's not right. In my opinion, he was supposed to fight one more. Maybe against Song Yadong. But once the UFC asked me, I said, okay, I will fight him.
"But I wanted to fight in February or March. But that's what I said. Why don't I like him? Because he called me a fake champion. Also, he was disrespectful towards my country."
One of the most bizarre moments of the UFC 306 main event came at the end of the second round as Dvalishvili had O'Malley in a dominant position. He was never going to lock in a fight-ending guillotine, however, and instead opted to use his position for some gamesmanship.
He planted a few kisses on O'Malley's back before standing up before the bell, much to the annoyance of Herb Dean. The champion then got back to his feet and started to throw punches, but it was just too little too late and his challenger survived.
And asked if he would repeat the stunt again at the end of Bloody Elbow's chat, Dvalishvili laughed off the idea and joked that there would be "no kiss, just punch!" He also refused to be drawn on what had caused him to act out in such a way.
UFC boss Dana White on the night branded him 'weird' for his behaviour, telling the media that "The kissing in the back and standing up and walking away before the bell? I have no idea, Merab does some s***. It was weird, but not shocking!"