(Autotag)Sean O’Malley(/Autotag) thinks he’s in (Autotag)Merab Dvalishvili(/Autotag)’s head.
O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) will defend his bantamweight title against Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in the main event of UFC 306 on September 14 at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
After challenging O’Malley for years, Dvalishvili will finally get his wish. However, O’Malley says people haven’t been demanding this fight so much – until now.
“Merab has been challenging me for a while,” O’Malley told Red Corner MMA. “After all the point wins, he challenged me, but it never came to anything. Nobody ever said, ‘Yo, you should have fought Merab.’ It’s like you can be so boring for so long that it becomes interesting. You can beat so many people in a boring way that you become interesting.”
Dvalishvili criticized some of the comments made by O’Malley’s head coach Tim Welch, accusing him of disrespect. O’Malley believes Dvalishvili’s focus is in the wrong place.
“It’s too easy (to get on his nerves),” O’Malley said. “He needs to work on that. He’s nervous. He’s worried about what Tim’s saying, he’s worried about my boy Schmitty in his DMs, he’s blocking a bunch of ‘Suga’ fans. I think he’s nervous.”
“I think he knows he’s in for a tough night. Aljo (Sterling) is probably better than him in training and he just saw what I did to his boy. You have to be careful what you wish for. He says he’s wanted this fight for a long time, but now that it’s real, I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘Oh, shit.'”
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For more information on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Champion Sean O’Malley: Getting on Merab Dvalishvili’s nerves is “too easy”
