Sean O’Malley has so much to mirror on after a lackluster outing value him the bantamweight title at UFC 306.
Regardless of guarantees of a first-round knockout and going into the battle because the incumbent champion, O’Malley struggled to take care of Merab Dvalishvili’s tempo and stress, which led to 6 takedowns and over 10 minutes of management time from the Georgian bantamweight.
In the long run, O’Malley misplaced a unanimous choice on the scorecards with Dvalishvili topped as the brand new champion.
“He seemed flat,” UFC CEO Dana White mentioned about O’Malley’s efficiency on the UFC 306 post-fight press convention. “He didn’t look sharp.”
As a lot as O’Malley struggled all through the battle, he virtually made a surprising comeback after snapping off a entrance kick to the physique that damage Dvalishvili badly within the remaining spherical. Realizing his opponent was damage, O’Malley rushed ahead to attempt to inflict extra harm however Dvalishvili was capable of circle away and keep out of bother till the ultimate horn sounded.
Outdoors of that second, O’Malley by no means had Dvalishvili in any actual bother throughout your entire hearth.
In reality, White believes O’Malley’s inactivity is basically what value him after he seemed on the statistics from the battle and realized that the at all times colourful bantamweight simply wasn’t throwing many punches in the course of the five-round battle.
“He didn’t look crisp till the final spherical,” White mentioned. “He damage him with that physique shot and he knew he damage him with the physique shot, and he stored stepping into making an attempt to complete. However I seemed on the punch stats, it was like six in a few the rounds.”
In line with the official UFC stats, O’Malley landed simply 5 out 10 vital strikes in spherical two after which 6 out of 9 vital strikes in spherical 4. For your entire battle, O’Malley related with 47 vital strikes in comparison with 82 for Dvalishvili.
Clearly no one was extra upset in regards to the loss than O’Malley however White didn’t have any simple solutions about why he carried out the way in which he did on Saturday.
Maybe essentially the most credit score goes to Dvalishvili, who simply by no means allowed O’Malley to settle into any type of rhythm in the course of the battle. With Dvalishvili in fixed pursuit, O’Malley was compelled to react off his backfoot and he simply couldn’t discover the timing for his punches earlier than he was caught keeping off takedowns spherical after spherical.
Finally, O’Malley misplaced the choice and his UFC title so now he’ll need to get again to the drafting board to see if he can earn one other shot on the belt sooner or later.
