Sean O’Malley would have flattened Merab Dvalishvili in the UFC 306 main event and retained his bantamweight title had his knockout punches not “barely missed by inches” inside the well-lit Sphere in the heart of Las Vegas, Nevada.
That’s according to O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch.
Dvalishvili dominated O’Malley for all five rounds then went on to defend the 135-pound strap opposite Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311 just a few months later. “The Machine” argues the Sphere presented him with the same challenges as O’Malley.
“We were stuck in the same situation,” Dvalishvili told Believe You Me. “Before the fight was like, ‘How are you gonna fight in The Sphere, there will be too much light.’ And I said, ‘We both will be in the same situation.’ I was not worried about it. It was the best arena I’ve ever fought in. Good lighting, the crowd was far away. It was just me and Sean, and I can hear my corner or his corner very well. I was relaxed.”
The O’Malley team can’t seem to make up its mind when it comes the UFC 306 loss, while UFC color commentator, Joe Rogan, suggests Dvalishvili is “superhuman” and virtually unstoppable at 135 pounds, thanks to his unparalleled wrestling and cardio.
The loss was enough to prompt “Suga” to ditch social media.
They’ll run it back atop the UFC 316 pay-per-view (PPV) card on June 7 in Newark, NJ. Critics argue it’s a do-over “nobody wants to see” because the challenger’s wrestling is “borderline embarrassing.” We’ll find out for sure (one way or the other) in less than three weeks.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
