“Suga” Sean O’Malley and dethroned this weekend at the Sphere at UFC 306, Merab Dvalishvili is Crowned New Bantamweight Champion
The UFC Noche Sphere gave fans more than it promised and showed up with the short movies in between the fights, the production and the fights themselves showed the Mexican fighting spirit for Mexican Independence Day that was advertised from President Dana White.
Fights like Ronaldo Rodriguez and Ode Osborne where Rodriguez was knocked down and put in a tight triangle choke for almost 3 minutes and escaped and ended up dominating the fight, or Irene Aldena and Norma Dumont where Aldnena kept fighting despite a deep cut going through her forehead that kept bleeding profusely and never gave up despite coming up short. And who can forget a fight of the year candidate with Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber in a 3 round war including 277 significant strikes between both fighters showing extreme heart with both getting rocked multiple times and the bout.
Photo from UFC.com
But the real story of this event was the global megastar “Suga” Sean O’Malley losing to now Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili. Merab has plowed through this 135 division going on a 12 fight win streak including wins over Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo which got him his deserved title shot.
The big deciding factor of this fight was if Dvalishvili could implement his wrestling and force O’Malley to the ground where he could work from there as O’Malley’s ground game is virtually unknown in the UFC. And oh boy did he wrestle with him. Merab completed 6/15 takedowns and had 10 minutes and 3 seconds worth of control time in comparison having two full rounds and some change of control.
Photo from Eurosport.com
He used his control from the clinch and from top positions wisely supplying ground and pound landing 214/310 total strikes and 82 of those being significant strikes. O’Malley on the other hand, had zero time of control with 49/91 strikes and 47 of those being significant.
Photo from MMA Fighting.com
Majority of the fight O’Malley was on his back foot moving backwards at the mercy of Dvalishvili’s forward pressure and intense cardio, bouncing around even in round 5 after grappling and using a ton of energy from clinches and exchanges, he was still able to be jumping around and have all this excess energy which just goes to show how overwhelming and unrelenting he is which I’m sure O’Malley was not prepared for.
It also would not be a Merab Dvalishvili fight without some of his antics including dribbling a imaginary basketball, kissing O’Malley’s back and yelling at Tim Welch who’s is O’Malleys coach in the beginning moments of the fight for trying to coach him like he did in the infamous clip of Welch telling Aljo to go pretending to be his coach and giving a chance for O’Malley to knock him out and win the belt.
Video from MMA Weekly
But through all the Dvalishvili was crowned champion after 5 rounds by unanimous decision and was overcome with joy dropping to his knees and yelling. In the post fight interview conducted by Joe Rogan it was insinuated that Umar Nurmagomedov, UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov’s cousin, would be next in line for a title shot as he was sitting in the crowd.
Photo from Total Pro Sports.com
O’Malley took to social media after the fight and voiced his frustration but understood that he lost the fight and apologized to fans and said that he would be back. He also stated that he does need hip surgery and would be out for 9-10 months.
Video from XcellentMMA Clips
So what is next for everyone in this Bantamweight division and how will the cards play out, will “Suga” Sean recapture the title after his hiatus or will Merab become a dominant champ and clear this division as he has been doing since his introduction in the UFC? We’ll just have to wait and see.
