Sean O'Malley fully expects to make history at UFC 316 in his rematch with Merab Dvalishvili.
UFC's big debut at the Las Vegas Sphere didn't go O'Malley's way in September, as he lost his title in a unanimous decision against Dvalishvili. The former UFC bantamweight champion has been vocal since about the torn labrum he suffered 10 weeks out from fight night; he had surgery in the immediate aftermath and believes he probably shouldn't have taken the fight. Ahead of UFC 316, however, O'Malley has flipped his perspective to the more positive side, seeing his loss as a boost to the magnitude of the rematch on June 7 in Newark, New Jersey.
"There's two ways you can go from taking a loss," O'Malley said Monday on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show" in his first public interview since the Dvalishvili loss. "You can either go up or down. I wanted to go up. The camp, the whole fight didn't go as planned, but I feel like it's going to make this one that much sweeter. I'm going to be a massive underdog. People aren't going to expect what I know I'm capable of on June 7, so it's going to make it that much sweeter.
"I had to wait three and a half years, whatever it was, to prove that the first [Marlon] 'Chito' [Vera] fight wasn't the way it was supposed to play out. This one, I didn't have to wait nearly as long, but I'm excited to go out there and do something similar in the rematch with Merab."
As the biggest star in the current UFC bantamweight division, O'Malley, 30, as a champion felt like the best-case scenario for the promotion, however his reign was relatively short, as O'Malley scored only one successful title defense in his Vera rematch in March 2024.
If O'Malley regains the title, he'll join his fellow former champions Dominick Cruz and TJ Dillashaw as the only multiple-time bantamweight titleholders in UFC history. But the path — or lack thereof — to O'Malley's ...
