Everybody wanted a piece of Sean O’Malley whenever he was UFC champion.
‘Suga’ held the bantamweight title for a little over a year, defending the belt in a masterclass against Chito Vera before losing it months later to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306.
It wasn’t your ordinary title fight in Las Vegas, no, O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili went down from the billion-dollar Sphere with an incredible lighting display in the background of the Octagon—a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Sean O’Malley lost to Dvalishvili by unanimous decision in an uncharacteristic performance. His coach Tim Welch said he believes the Sphere’s lighting made it problematic for O’Malley to find his shots on the feet.
Headlining at the Sphere comes with a certain pressure in itself and looking back on O’Malley’s title loss, a pay-per-view star thinks the moment (and everything surrounding it) rattled the champion before the fight even started.
Chael Sonnen says Sean O’Malley was ‘pulled in three different directions’ at UFC 306
Former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen says O’Malley had much more to deal with than Merab Dvalishvili on fight night.
“You got [Umar] Nurmagomedov in the front row, basically, with a notepad and a pen, taking down every single step that O’Malley makes,” Sonnen said on Good Guy / Bad Guy.
“O’Malley’s got no choice. He’s gotta go deal with this maniac called Merab. He might as well be fighting Nurmagomedov right then.
“He’s got his eyes on [Deiveson] Figueiredo. I mean, he’s pulled in three different directions.
“You wanna talk about the lights being too bright, if we’re talking figurative, Stephen A. Smith says ‘Where the lights got too bright…’ They were too damn bright.
“That wasn’t a fair situation they put Sean in,” Sonnen added.
Chael Sonnen says Sean O’Malley didn’t get ‘fair shake’ with Merab Dvalishvili
Following O’Malley’s sole title defense over Chito Vera at UFC 299, Sonnen claimed ‘Suga’ didn’t have much of a choice when it came to fighting Dvalishvili in September.
In the bantamweight division, you couldn’t find a contender more deserving of a title shot than Dvalishvili as the Georgian had to win ten fights in a row to get a crack at O’Malley. But still, Sonnen says:
“Sean never asked for the Merab fight.
“Sean beat up Chito Vera, and [the UFC] assigned him the Merab fight,” Sonnen explained.
“He never even had a chance to take it to the open market and go after who he wanted.
“I never thought they gave Sean a fair shake,” said Sonnen.
Sean O’Malley also stated post-fight he fought Dvalishvili while injured with a torn labrum.
The former champion gets a chance to redeem himself against Dvalishvili in the main event of UFC 316 on June 7 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.