In about two weeks from now on September 15, fight fans will witness the “greatest live sporting event in history” when the UFC takes over The Sphere with the main event bantamweight banger between Sean O’Malley & Merab Dvalishvili. Prior to his title defense, the BW champion, O’Malley has issued a warning to his Georgian challenger albeit with a hint of mercy.
Responding to the fan query on his YouTube channel, ‘Suga’, in an attempt to ‘lil bro’ Dvalishvili, has claimed that he doesn’t want to really hurt the challenger.
Being an absolute gent of course, the Montana native wants to spare Dvalishvili from humiliation. At the same time, the American is also wary of his game plan and teases the fandom of a brutal KO on September 15, promising his fans to put the challenger to sleep.
“I don’t want to hurt him because at one point I hurt him but it could turn into a brutal KO just an absolute, not a good weight cut, not a good camp and he just gets slept badly like jingling.”
In fact, despite claiming to not want to hurt his opponent, O’Malley is eyeing an early KO, before the Georgian powerhouse imposes his will on him using his signature pressure style wrestling.
And that pressure wrestling must be causing some headaches in the O’Malley camp as his coach, Tim Welch seems genuinely impressed by Dvalishvili’s game.
O’Malley’s coach reckons Merab an “absolute animal”
Despite the genuine hatred and bad blood between the two, it seems like Sean O’Malley and his coach, Tim Welch, are really impressed by Merab’s style.
Welch, who has been studying the Georgian’s style for the upcoming bout, gave props to Merab, citing his dominant performance against former champion, Petr Yan. He said,
“Merab is an absolute animal…Anybody who can beat up Petr Yan for 25 minutes…he threw around Henry Cejudo like Henry almost didn’t even know how to wrestle.”
The way the Georgian beat Yan at UFC Fight Night last year seems to have left a lasting impression on Welch. Shooting takedown after takedown, Merab put the former champion on skates, dominating him by effectively neutralizing the Russian’s striking with his wrestling.
Likewise, Dvalishvili even schooled former champion, Henry Cejudo in their bout, taking the fight to the Olympian by outwrestling him.
With such dominant performances, Welch clearly identifies the Georgian as a threat and isn’t looking past him in any manner. But can O’Malley utilize his range and catch him like he did against Aljamain Sterling?
