Dana White Criticizes O’Malley’s UFC 306 Performance – ‘He Looked Flat’
Dana White criticized Sean O’Malley following his lacklustre performance against Merab Dvalishvili.
Dvalishvili dominated O’Malley to win a unanimous decision to become the UFC Bantamweight Champion: 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47. Merab landed several successful takedowns to zap O’Malley’s energy, which reduced his striking. Suga threw very few punches, often finding himself on the ground for most of the fight.
O’Malley did find success in the last round with a body attack. The statistics show that Sean only landed five of his ten significant strikes in the second round. That number increased slightly when he connected with six out of his nine significant strikes in the fourth round. Once the fight was over, O’Malley only connected with 47 significant strikes. Meanwhile, Merab landed 82.
White Reacts
But it was not enough to trouble O’Malley, who suffered his second UFC loss. O’Malley had big plans, hoping a win would propel him to more stardom with a possible fight against Umar Nurmagomedov. He also compared himself to Conor McGregor, stating he was a bigger name. White has now had his say, as he recognized that O’Malley failed to turn up.
“He looked flat. He didn’t look sharp. [And] he didn’t look crisp until the last round. [Sean] hurt him with that body shot and he knew he hurt him with the body shot, and he kept going in trying to finish. But I looked at the punch stats, it was like six in a couple of the rounds,” White said
Dvalishvili ultimately got into O’Malley’s head. In the build-up, he raised serious concerns over his own state. He shared some video footage showing that he had received a cut. While Merab reassured everyone that he would be fine, Dana White was unhappy that he shared the footage as it could have given Suga an advantage.
Dvalishvili On O’Malley
Dvalishvili then shared more footage of himself removing the stitches, as though he wanted O’Malley to focus on the cut. But Merab defied the pre-narrative by neutralizing O’Malley to extend his record to 11 wins in a row. In his post-fight comments, Dvalishvili credited O’Malley for being a great fighter. But he admitted that he made Suga look ordinary.
“Today I wasn’t feeling any different than any other day. I was actually curious why I wasn’t feeling that I was fighting for a UFC belt. Today was a normal day for me. As you see, I don’t spend my energy. Crazy. I feel I’m in a dream. Today, I’m the best fighter in the UFC. I proved!
“I can go 15 more rounds like this. I have a belt, I win, everybody knows I dominated this guy. I just won the belt. I respect and love Dana White, whatever he wants. Now I’m champion, I want to be close. I want him to know me more better. I respect him. Dana White changed my life. Now look at me, I’m the UFC champion,” Dvalisvhili stated
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