Sean O’Malley has announced his next fight at UFC 306, “as soon as he loses to Merab”
Sean O’Malley has some doubts ahead of his title fight against Merab Dvalishvili.
This Mexican Independence Day weekend, the Sugar Show takes over the Sphere in Las Vegas, with O’Malley defending his bantamweight title for a second time against undisputed No. 1 contender Dvalishvili at Noche UFC.
O’Malley has called this fight a “nightmare matchup” for Dvalishvili, as he believes he has a massive advantage in the striking department. However, others, like his bantamweight rival and former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo, disagree, believing Dvalishvili’s fast-paced wrestling and cardio will be too much for a striker like “Suga.”
Still funny how much this clip of Sean O’Malley and Cejudo looked like a scene from The Office 😭 pic.twitter.com/BkYuyT4o6l
— Elon Rakhmonov (fan) 🇦🇺 (@ElonRakhmonov) July 11, 2024
Former UFC champion predicts Sean O’Malley vs Merab Dvalishvili – “He’s in trouble”
Despite being an Olympic champion in freestyle wrestling, Cejudo was the one defeated by Dvalishvili in their bout at UFC 298, losing his second straight fight after coming out of retirement. Cejudo is counting on Dvalishvili to spring an upset at the Sphere and believes he is within reach of a possible fight against O’Malley, a fighter he has been challenging for several years.
“If he loses to Merab, and I believe he will lose to Merab, then the next fight that will be between me and him,” Cejudo began to explain. Pounds 4 Pounds. “Deiveson (Figueiredo) will fight Petr Yan. Umar (Nurmagomedov) is already fighting for the belt. The only guy really left in this whole division is me. So I’ll be the next best thing.”
“Granted, I lost to the former champion,” said Cejudo about his title fight defeat against Aljamain Sterling. “I lost to the upcoming world champion. But what can we say, buddy? I think after this fight I know that Merab will win. I know a little about O’Malley’s fight camp and how it went…”
As for Henry Cejudo’s future career, the 37-year-old has considered the possibility of returning to flyweight after never losing the 125-pound title to anyone, but gave it up as his bantamweight reign took its time.
Cejudo says the only fight that could keep him from returning to the weight class is a fight against, you guessed it, Sean O’Malley.
“I plan on moving down to flyweight. I started my diet. I’m going to do everything right. And the only reason I even want to do that is… because I pretty much have to get to this new level of discipline. But there’s a fight, and I’m going to get back to it. I think the fight between me and Sean O’Smelly, Ronald McDonald, makes a lot of sense, dude.
“I think we can do it here in Phoenix (Arizona). This is the only middleweight fight and I would get to the middleweight title fight quicker, so I would still love that,” Cejudo said of the fight against O’Malley.
We’ll see if there’s potential for an O’Malley-Cejudo fight after Saturday, depending on how the action unfolds at Noche UFC.
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