MERAB DVALISHVILI - FROM THE STREETS

Merab Dvalishvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, on January 10, 1991, and raised in a small village called Vani. Georgia was part of the SSR, which disbanded the same year as Dvalishvili’s birth, resulting in civil unrest. Crime rates skyrocketed, unemployment rates increased, and gang violence rose. These struggles meant Dvalishvili’s upbringing was challenging because his family struggled financially. When he was nine, his family relocated from Vani to the capital city Tbilisi. Tough times create tough men, and Dvalishvili embodied this by getting into plenty of fights as a kid, believing that you had to be tough to protect your family. He fell in with the wrong crowd but still played sports like football and basketball until he was 13 and discovered Judo. 

Speaking on the Raveneer show, Dvalishvili said: “Thank God I started training in Judo. I stopped hanging out outside. I had a goal to be one of the guys who represented my country in Europe or in the world. So, I wasn’t interested in the bullshit anymore.”

He dreamed of Olympic glory, but in 2008 the rules changed, so a specific way of taking an opponent down, which was his signature style, became illegal. By chance he received an offer to fight in MMA, referred to as ‘fighting without rules’ in Georgia. Initially hesitant, he decided to fight and enjoyed it so much that he decided to fly to the US and train full-time. He went on to meet Ray Longo and Chris Weidman. Weidman was training for the Anderson Silva fight, and Dvalishvili was training at the Gracie Academy in New York. Longo and Dvalishvili began speaking and realized that Dvalishvili lived close to Longo’s new gym. Dvalishvili had a few bumps in the road and didn’t believe his team at the time was looking out for his best interests, so Longo invited him to train at the gym, and the rest was history.

QUINTON JACKSON - THE SUPERHERO

Quinton Ramone Jackson was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on June 20, 1978. His grandparents, mother, father, and siblings raised him in a large family household in a rough neighborhood where he fell in with the wrong crowd who taught him how to fight. 

On the Mike O’Hearn show, Jackson said: “They thought they were training me to be like them, but what they taught me was that I didn’t want to be like them because a lot of my friends were getting shot, going to jail, dying, getting hooked on drugs. My brothers and cousins wanted to be like these guys. I learned not to be like these guys, and luckily, I found wrestling and MMA when I was 17, so I went down a different path.”

Jackson despised bullies, so he regularly got into fights when looking out for the little guy. He loved the idea of competition, which helped him focus his aggression in a positive environment. During his senior year, Quinton finished fifth in a state tournament at 189lb and befriended future Bellator fighter Jacob Noe. The two traded striking tips for wrestling techniques, and he planned on a pro wrestling career, but that changed after discovering MMA. 

 “Wrestling saved me, MMA saved my life,” he explained. “I like fighting. I wasn’t a bad guy. I would have been one of the guys hanging out in bars waiting for something to happen, like a superhero. I always wanted to be a superhero. MMA challenged all that to put my skills against someone else's skills as a sport, and I see it as just that: a sport. I have the worst temper on the planet, but I've only lost my temper once in a fight, so I'm really proud of myself that I can control myself and see it as a sport.”

JIŘÍ PROCHÁZKA - FINDING PURPOSE

Jiří Procházka was born on October 14, 1992, in Znojmo, Czech Republic, to a life of hardship. The first was his father’s passing when he was six. He channeled his energies into sports, focusing on football and freestyle BMX riding, but struggled without a father figure. Procházka was in regular street fights after joining a football ultras group for FC Zbrojovka Brno, his local football team. The club was well known for its violent fan base, which would organize 60-person fights against rival team groups. His MMA journey began during his teenage years. A close friend of his at the time showed him videos of Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Filipovic, which piqued his interest, but what really inspired him was the film Never Back Down.

He started Thai boxing, and although he was still enjoying football hooliganism, he became fascinated by the warriors of old: the Samurais. His coach gifted him The Book of Five Rings, and he became a fanatic.

Speaking to BBC Sport, he said, “I took it on as my own, and that was the main thing of why I started to think like that, to read the philosophy and all these books around fighting. Purpose is a good word. It changed my life because I had no rules in my life after my father died, so that's why I was looking for some strong information and strong ideas I can keep in my life.”

MMA completely took over his life, and he abandoned the hooliganism and amateur football career to pursue MMA. He made his professional debut when he was 20. In the first two years of his career, he fought nine times, going 7-2, and he displayed not only his fighting potential but also his focus mentality, which would be the catalyst for carrying him to the very top of the UFC all these years later.