Jon Anik sees a silver lining in Sean O’Malley’s loss to Merab Dvalishvili.
Returning to the Octagon at UFC 306 for his second title defense of 2024, ‘Sugar’ delivered a lackluster showing that saw his explosive offense stifled by the grapple-heavyweight attack of Dvalishvili through five rounds. In the end, ‘The Machine’ saw his hand raised, taking the bantamweight title back home to Georgia via a dominant unanimous decision.
In the aftermath, O’Malley revealed that he suffered a torn labrum 10 weeks out from fight night, though he never disclosed the injury to the promotion. Scheduled to undergo surgery in early October, O’Malley is expected to be out of action for 6-8 months at a minimum.
Speaking with MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, the UFC’s chief play-by-play man offered his interesting take on O’Malley’s loss, suggesting that it could be for the best on the promotion’s side of things.
“I think the good news if you’re looking for a silver lining for the UFC is that had Sean won this fight, maybe this hip injury would have had to be repaired anyway, right?” Anik said. “And then you wonder if you need an interim champion. So I think right now, your new champion is pretty durable and willing to take on all challengers.
And a murderers’ row, of course, awaits Sean O’Malley with the Cory Sandhagens of all the world and everybody else. There are a lot of dream-type matchups at ’35 for fight fans, right? Even Sean O’Malley and Dominick Cruz makes some semblance of sense right now. So there’s a lot of different fights at ’35 that make a lot of sense” (h/t MMA News).
Merab vs. Umar Up next as Sean O’Malley takes time to heal up
Though it’ll be a while until we see O’Malley back inside the Octagon, Merab Dvalishvili is already staring down the barrel of his first title defense.
All signs currently point toward ‘The Machine’ putting his newly-won bantamweight belt on the line against No. 2 ranked contender Umar Nurmagomedov not long after our calendars flip over to 2025 — assuming the Dagestani is willing to wait that long.
