‘It got tight fast’… Sean O’Malley breaks down what went wrong in crushing UFC 316 title defeat

Sean O’Malley wishes he’d done something differently in his disappointing defeat to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316.

The American fighter attempted to regain the UFC Bantamweight title from Merab Dvalishvili, whom he lost the belt to just last year.

Sean O’Malley completely changed his lifestyle to have the best chance of beating the Georgian, but came up short in the main event of UFC 316.

In the third round of their fight, Dvalishvili choked out O’Malley and forced him to tap out, retaining his UFC Bantamweight title with an impressive performance.

O’Malley has some regrets about how the fight went down and knows why he lost the bout in New Jersey.

• READ MORE – Sean O’Malley returns to training just days after brutal UFC 316 title loss as he plots his next move

Sean O’Malley wishes he had held out longer against Merab Dvalishvili

O’Malley pinpointed the mistake that cost him the fight against Dvalishvili.

“Suga” tapped out in the third round with just 18 seconds to go, and he admits he’d have tried to hold on longer if he knew how close he was to the bell.

“It was weird, ’cause I didn’t feel like it was going to be tight. Like, I felt like he was going to kind of stall in that position, like he does.” O’Malley told the TimboSugarShow.

“And then—it just… yeah, it got tight fast. I was like, ‘I didn’t realize how much time was left. I wish I would’ve tried to just play it safe, been in my guard more instead of trying to get up and make something happen.’

“But that’s all, you know, no excuses. I had a great camp. Camp was really good. Training camp, the sparring. Everything was excellent.”

Despite losing, O’Malley is still the top ranked fighter in the UFC Bantamweight division and will have some big fights in the near future.

Not needing surgery after the fight was the best thing for Sean O’Malley

In the same video, O’Malley revealed that the best part of losing that fight was not needing to go into surgery following it.

That is in contrast to the last fight with Dvalishvili, where he lost the UFC belt and went under the knife in a horrible few days for “Suga”.

O’Malley said: “Not having to get surgery after the fight is so… like, oh my god. I don’t know if that’s why I still feel so happy and grateful.

“Like, I don’t have to get surgery. After the last fight, that sucked, dude. Losing the belt and then having to get surgery right after?

“That was… that was not good. This time it’s like, well, what are you going to do?”

O’Malley looks to be aiming for a December return to the octagon, with a fight against Umar Nurmagomedov seeming most likely.