Sean O’Malley guarantees a greater efficiency this time round in opposition to Merab Dvalishvili.
On Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White revealed that O’Malley will problem Dvalishvili for the bantamweight title in the primary occasion of UFC 316 in June, a rematch of their UFC 306 title battle that noticed Dvalishvili win by dominant resolution. However O’Malley insists issues might be completely different this time.
“The rematch is official,” O’Malley mentioned on his YouTube channel. “‘Suga’ Sean vs. Merab 2 is occurring, and I don’t assume persons are going to be too completely happy about it. …
“The final time I fought the very best bantamweight on the earth—the very best bantamweight on the time [Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292]—I acquired the job performed. I’m very assured in my abilities. Final camp we had some shit occurring. I don’t wish to sit right here and make excuses. We had an incredible camp, I confirmed up, I used to be in form, we did what we may with what we had been in a position to do. This camp has already been lots completely different and I’m feeling good. I’m excited to go on the market and deal with enterprise.”
O’Malley getting one other crack at Dvalishvili was met with backlash from the MMA group. Their first battle was a transparent win for “The Machine,” who has since defended his title in opposition to Umar Nurmagomedov. O’Malley, in the meantime, has not fought since dropping to Dvalishvili. As an alternative, “Suga” underwent surgical procedure to repair a hip concern and has been recovering. Nonetheless, O’Malley says he’s already in coaching camp for this rematch and intends to show that Dvalishvili solely received the primary battle as a result of he wasn’t at his finest.
“Final battle camp, each single journal entry was like, ‘My groin stored me up at evening’ as a result of I tore my labrum 10 weeks earlier than the battle,” O’Malley mentioned. “I tore my groin labrum and I used to be having severe groin ache. It was tremendous—it wasn’t ideally suited. I used to be in a position to prepare, I used to be in a position to powerful by means of it, however clearly it’s not ideally suited to enter a battle, particularly in opposition to a f*cking assassin—properly, not a assassin, however a stud, an absolute machine [like Merab]. …
“If I can simply maintain this tempo up, how we’ve been in a position to prepare the previous few weeks, all the way in which as much as the battle, I’m going to be 70 p.c higher than I used to be in that first battle. I’m going to be considerably extra cellular, agile, higher form. I’m going to battle at my full potential. Whereas my final battle, I used to be very proud of how I used to be in a position to carry out contemplating how I felt. It wasn’t ideally suited, the end result, I didn’t win, however I additionally assume I wasn’t imagined to win. This rematch was imagined to occur. It’s going to make this win that rather more loopy.”
UFC 316 goes down June 7 at Prudential Heart in Newark, N.J.
