- Sean O’Malley didn’t pull out of UFC 306 because he thought he could beat Merab Dvalishvili even with an injury
- “Suga” believes he won three out of the five rounds against “The Machine”
Sean O’Malley insists that he beat Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306 and chose not to pull out despite having an injury because he was confident his opponent was terrible.
No need to pull out against Merab
Speaking Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, “Suga” revealed that he was suffering from a torn labrum the entire UFC 306 training camp. However, O’Malley said he didn’t feel the need to withdraw from a fight against someone like Dvalishvili.
“I had a torn labrum 10 weeks before the fight I f**king snapped my labrum and it is what it is, it’s you know, called an excuse but what is the truth and excuse, I guess it is whatever but yeah it was unfortunate,” O’Malley said.
“No [I didn’t consider pulling out]… Merab sucks, like there was no reason to pull out… No [I don’t regret not pulling out] because I’m gonna whoop Merab’s a** and it’s gonna make it that much sweeter when I beat him the second time,” he added.
Sean thinks he won 3 out 5 rounds
As for the outcome of the fight, O’Malley admitted that it took him a few weeks before he decided to review his title bout with “The Machine.” After watching it over and again, “Suga” is certain he won three out of five rounds.
“It drove me crazy like especially because the narrative was I just got my a** whooped and I didn’t even want to rewatch the fight because everyone was saying oh you got f**king smoked… but I rewatched the fight and my biased, no we’ll say my unbiased, humble opinion, I mean the judges gave me round three and five that means he won two and four, which I’m not arguing, he for sure won rounds two and four,” O’Malley assessed.
“I don’t understand how you give me round three but not round one, I thought round one was more of my round than round three. Even I thought I won round one, three and five, let alone didn’t get my a** kicked. Round two and four, he definitely won but I rewatched the fight and I stuffed nine out of 15 takedowns, 60% of the takedowns. I stuffed more than Henry Cejudo silver medalist in the Olympics so I’m still a better wrestler than Henry. I stuffed two more takedowns in that fight, I win that fight, I had him running around holding his guts in in the fifth round,” he added.
O’Malley lost his title to Dvalishvili via unanimous decision. He plans to take a long break before making his UFC return and an attempt to reclaim his bantamweight title.
Watch O’Malley’s full interview below:
