Sean O’Malley plans to exploit Merab Dvalishvili‘s recent facial cut when defending his bantamweight title at UFC 306, echoing UFC CEO Dana White’s criticism of Dvalishvili’s decision to reveal the injury on social media.
Sean O’Malley certainly isn’t complaining about having an extra target to attack at UFC 306.
O’Malley defends his bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili on Sept. 14. This bout headlines the promotion’s debut event at Sphere in Las Vegas. A few weeks ago, Dvalishvili posted a photo of a cut near his left eye on social media. That led to UFC CEO Dana White having some not-so-kind things to say about the challenger.
One reason for White’s irate reaction? Letting O’Malley know the cut exists. Now, the champ plans to exploit it.
“I am 100 percent going to open up that cut, whether it’s healed or not,” O’Malley told Kevin Iole.
O’Malley has been supremely confident he will defeat Dvalishvili at UFC’s September pay-per-view event. He loves the stylistic matchup.
With his striking advantage, O’Malley believes the cut will be just one of many facial targets. “I don’t know how much it can heal,” he said.
“I’ve never had any bad cuts so I’m not sure, really. But I’m going to be aiming for it.”
“That’s the left side of his face — this right hand doesn’t miss. I’ll probably accidentally hit his nose before I hit that cut. The nose just kind of takes up 85 percent of his face. So I’m going to try and get around his nose to get to that cut.”
Dvalishvili subsequently posted a video of himself removing the stitches from the cut shortly after the original reveal. Naturally, White reacted sarcastically.
O’Malley understands where his boss is coming from and agrees with White regarding Dvalishvili’s intelligence.
“Dana referring to him as… I don’t remember what he said, one of the stupidest people, or beyond stupid, or whatever he said was pretty accurate,” O’Malley remarked. “I mean, the dude is just not that smart of a guy.”