Merab Dvalishvili canceled the show show and again retained its COQ weight title from the UFC with a third round submission victory over Sean O’malley in the main UFC 316 event.
Dvalishvili did not waste time returning to what worked in their first fight. He applied constant pressure from the opening bell, removed O’malley and won a decisive lead.
The second round has seen much more strike, but has always ended up being a strong round for Dvalishvili. He forced O’malley on his rear foot with a lot of volume and ended up countering an attempted offense of O’malley.
He continued to erase any opportunity for O’malley to conclude an attack as the fight was advancing. Finally, the defense of O’malley turned out, which allowed Dvalishvili to lock himself in a strangulation and to win his first stop victory since 2021.
Dvalishvili does not always have his due, but he has gained a lot of respect with another dominant victory.
Dvalishvili began his title of title with a victory against O’malley at the UFC 306. Now, he can certainly say that he has the rivalry with a 2-0 file against the talented O’malley.
There are some options for Dvalishvili to advance. One thing we can probably exclude is a movement up to 145 pounds soon. Although it is common for champions to turn to the next division these days, Dvalishvili publicly said that he had no interest in going to meet Alexander Volkanovski in Featherweight.
“I don’t want to take a big risk, I’m good. Even if this weight cut is zero, I prefer to kill myself to gain this weight and be comfortable here,” he said Fox Sports Australia (H / t Farah Hannoun of MMA Junkie). “I’m fine, I don’t want to (fight Volkanovski). Then we can cook peacefully and wish us the best.”
For the moment, it seems that Dvalishvili is content to continue to build his case as one of the large rooster weights. He already has victories on O’malley, Henry Cejudo, Petr Yan, Jose Aldo and Marlon Moraes.
He doesn’t have many challenges left. A fight with Cory Sandhant could be interesting, but the other options probably involve revenge.
