Sean O’Malley has admitted that he had to at times force his feud with Merab Dvalishvili before their first meeting.
Heading into UFC 306 back in September, O’Malley and Dvalishili appeared to have a bitter rivalry. Their issues dated back to when the American dethroned his rival’s teammate Aljamain Sterling over a year prior.
But O’Malley now says that he never truly had an issue with the current champion, and that it wasn’t a legitimate feud. The pair are set to rematch at UFC 316, and are going into this fight with a different type of build after establishing some sort of a friendship.
Sean O’Malley admits Merab Dvalishvili feud was forced ahead of first fight
The lead-up to Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili’s first fight was the farthest thing from friendly fans could imagine. There were incidents between the pair’s fans before eventually the Georgian won a comfortable decision in the only combat event ever at Sphere in Las Vegas.
But O’Malley claims they were never truly enemies, telling Ariel Helwani on last night’s episode of his show: “I feel like the first Merab fight I wanted to not like him because as a fan I enjoy when two fighters don’t necessarily like each other and there’s beef there, I enjoy that.
“So I felt like I wanted to create that and it wasn’t very authentic because I like Merab. I met him a few times, he’s a nice guy, it’s nothing. He’s on his path doing his own thing so I don’t know if that affected his performance or what but I don’t mind Merab.”
Merab Dvalishvili and Sean O’Malley have developed new friendship ahead of UFC 316
In the aftermath of the fight, the pair ran into each other at the UFC Performance Insitute where they enjoyed a recovery session together before their rematch was confirmed. And the champion has even joked that he wants O’Malley to ‘go back’ to his old trash talking ways in order to build the fight.
“I’ll forever be grateful for Merab in that sense that he beat me, he made me a better not just fighter, a better person, a better human,” O’Malley explained during a recent episode of his podcast. “Losing is a weird thing. Where there’s struggle, there’s opportunity for growth.”
This seemed to irk the champion, who jokingly took to X to respond to the compliments coming from famed trash talker O’Malley. He wants him back to his old ways, telling the American: “Cut it out MFckrs – go back to talking s—. I need to be mad about you again.”
