Days after saying that a rematch between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili doesn’t make sense, Cory Sandhagen has made it clear that the former has no choice but to face him next. Never one to hold back, Sandhagen took a dig at O’Malley’s millions of followers, stating that they wouldn’t be able to protect him from having to fight the top contenders in the division.
Sandhagen explained that despite a fighter’s marketability, merit-based fights in the UFC were still a thing and said –
“With the O’Malley thing man, I understand the star piece, I am not oblivious.
“I am not going to live in a world that is delusional and act like that is not a big giant piece of what it means to get the fights that you want, get title fights and all of that stuff. Sean has no merit to say he should not fight me other than ‘Hey I have a million followers and you don’t’.”
“Sean has no merit to say that he shouldn’t fight me other than ‘Hey I have a million followers and you don’t.'”@corysandhagenx pulls no punches and makes the case for him and Sean O’Malley to fight each other next
Source: MMA Today w/@RJcliffordMMA pic.twitter.com/FXrE39rCrk
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) January 25, 2025
Both O’Malley and Sandhagen are coming off losses. However, their mentality towards getting back to a title shot could not be more different.
Following his loss to Umar Nurmagomedov last year in August, ‘The Sandman’ had taken a backseat and allowed for things to shape up in the bantamweight division. Now, he is happy to put in the work, secure a few wins, and prove that he is worthy of a title shot.
O’Malley, on the other hand, feels that his past achievements warrant an immediate rematch for a title. But that is not how the sport works most of the times.
Aljamain Sterling dismisses O’Malley-Merab rematch
After Dvalishvili’s dominant win over Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 311, Dana White had suggested O’Malley might be next in line for a title shot, despite losing to Dvalishvili last September.
Dana White implies Sean O’Malley is fighting the winner of Merab vs Umar.
Talk about systematically ruining the sport. He got dominated by Merab & never truly defended the belt & he’s getting a title shot? (Vera was a fake title defense) pic.twitter.com/1Kd24lZWsI
— MMA Joey (@MMAJOEYC) January 15, 2025
Sterling, who was knocked out by O’Malley at UFC 292, thinks the fight would make a nice payday, but isn’t sure it makes sense for the latter.
He pointed out O’Malley’s long gaps between fights and questioned whether he’s done enough recently to warrant a title shot. Sterling also doesn’t see O’Malley doing anything different in a rematch with Dvalishvili other than hoping to land a lucky blow.
As Sterling puts it, “It’s just a hard fight to sell”.
It might be offensive to O’Malley’s millions of followers but he got dominated by Merab in their last fight at UFC: Noche, getting taken down six times and controlled for over 10 minutes.
Since then, he has had hip surgery and hasn’t been part of a camp. He might start now but Merab wants to fight as soon as April. Having witnessed O’Malley’s conditioning and grappling in that lost title fight, it is difficult to believe 2 months will make a lot of difference. But perhaps someone should ask Merab who he would like to fight first.
