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Fellow MMA fighters were impressed with Merab Dvalishvili's dominant win over Sean O'Malley. In the UFC 316 main event on June 7, Dvalishvili defeated O'Malley by third-round submission due to a north-south choke after comfortably controlling the range and the pace of the fight.
O'Malley, who had been dealing with a labrum injury in their first fight at Noche UFC 306, performed better than in the first fight in the early rounds. However, Dvalishvili was able to ramp up the pace in Round 3, ultimately leading to the exchanges that resulted in the finish.
Check out some moments from Merab Dvalishvili's submission win over Sean O'Malley below:
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Fellow MMA fighters took note of Dvalishvili's performance and shared their thoughts on social media.
Henry Cejudo wrote on X:
"Merab Dvalishvili Bantamweight [GOAT] #UFC316 [Clapping emoji]"
Johnny Walker wrote:
"@MerabDvalishvil just give an master class as always, you can say wherever you want , but he is the goat. Very exiting to watch , proud of you brother #UFC316"
Check out more fighter reactions to Merab Dvalishvili's performance below:
In their first fight at Noche UFC 306, Dvalishvili controlled the action for five rounds, but O'Malley's body kicks appeared to have given him a hard time in the final round. Observers believed that O'Malley could build on that success in the UFC 316 rematch. However, the champion showed significant improvement in striking and appeared to have landed the more impactful strikes consistently.
To his credit, O'Malley thwarted all the takedown attempts in Round 2, but Dvalishvili did not allow him to build the momentum and aggressively pursued wrestling in the third round, leading to the submission victory.
With two title defences, against O'Malley and Umar Nurmagomedov, under the belt, the Georgian fighter is likely to face Cory Sandhagen in his next title defence. Ranked No.4 in the bantamweight division, Sandhagen is coming off a second-round TKO win over former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo in his last outing.
