Losses are tough pills to swallow, but they go down easier when you’re losing to the best. Sean O’Malley suffered his second straight defeat to UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316. Yet he appears at peace with the outcome and unshaken in his self-belief, praising Dvalishvili as the best bantamweight ever.
On Tuesday, O’Malley opened up about his second loss to the champ. O’Malley lost more decisively at UFC 316 despite entering healthier and sharper than the first time they fought. After sharing eight combined rounds with Dvalishvili and being submitted by the champ, O’Malley is prepared to crown his rival as the greatest 135-pound mixed martial artist.
“I feel like I got so much better this fight,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “I feel like I was able to show that in camp. But just being on bottom, and I’ve trained with the best. We train with such good guys… It’s so weird. He just felt so f—ing compact and strong in there. I feel like that was too much… [He’s the] greatest of all time — greatest bantamweight of all time.”
O’Malley admitted to carrying psychological baggage into the rematch. He knew what Dvalishvili brought to the table: elite cardio, relentless pressure, and positional dominance. O’Malley was unusually anxious on Saturday.
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“I was more nervous this fight, probably than I’ve ever been,” O’Malley said. “You feel vulnerable. You’re in the cage like, ‘This motherf—er grabs a hold of me, there’s a chance I can’t get away from this little f—er.’ I had worked the takedown defense so much, and I knew I was able to get up. But I was like, ‘I also know there’s a chance this fight plays out the same way it did [last time].'”
Despite suffering the first back-to-back losses of his career, O’Malley refuses to abandon the mindset that made him a champion. He still deems himself capable of solving the Dvalishvili puzzle.
“I can beat Merab,” O’Malley said. “Call it delusional, call it whatever. That’s how I got to where I’m at right now. I know I can still beat Merab.”
O’Malley’s self-belief won’t spur him into hasty decisions. After two tough training camps for the man he now calls the greatest bantamweight in history, “Suga” plans to take a break before deciding what comes next.
“It’s nice to not think about a fight right now because I do want to just chill for a few weeks,” O’Malley said. “It’s way better. Even if the UFC said, ‘We know what we want to do [with you next],’ I don’t even want to know right now. Just let me chill for five.”
