Just a few days removed from his brutal loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316, Sean O’Malley is back on the mats plotting his next move.
This past Saturday at UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey, Merab Dvalishvili once again dominated Sean O’Malley to defend his bantamweight title, scoring a fourth round submission win.
Throughout his UFC 316 fight camp, O’Malley claimed that it was going to be a completely different fight as he gave up several vices to fully focus on the fight this time around.
Despite that, ‘Suga’ went on to put on another tepid performance, which has since been scathed by UFC champion Tom Aspinall, who claimed O’Malley ‘didn’t want to be in there’ after the first few rounds.
O’Malley returns to training just days removed from brutal loss
Although the 30-year-old was unsuccessful in reclaiming his bantamweight title, UFC legend Chael Sonnen has claimed that O’Malley is still the biggest star in the sport.
However, now being so far away from touching UFC gold again, ‘Suga’ has a lot of work to do to get back into title contention in a deep 135lb division.
And with that, just days removed from his brutal loss against ‘The Machine’, O’Malley has returned to his gym in Arizona where he has been watching his teammates train.
Despite the fact that the striker was largely dominated for four rounds, he didn’t take a huge amount of damage and following the fight he only suffered some scratches and bruises.
What’s next for Sean O’Malley as he plots his return?
Although O’Malley has now suffered back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, he hasn’t been moved down the bantamweight rankings and remains in the number one spot.
His counterpart, Dvalishvili has leaped up two places on the pound-for-pound list, overtaking Ilia Topuria and Jon Jones to jump into the number two spot.
Immediately after UFC 316, O’Malley was called out by his former foe Petr Yan who is hoping for a rematch of their controversial fight in 2022.
However, a fight that could make more sense for O’Malley next is a clash against former UFC double champion, Henry Cejudo, who has continuously called out the UFC star.