Sean O’Malley: Merab Dvalishvili ‘sh*tting himself terrified’ of Umar Nurmagomedov

Sean O’Malley sees plenty of options for Merab Dvalishvili, including one he thinks the UFC bantamweight champion is actively avoiding.

Dvalishvili defeated O’Malley at UFC 306 this past September to claim the title, and it appeared his first challenger would be the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov - currently No. 2 at 135 pounds in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings - who was in attendance for the fight. However, Dvalishvili has been reluctant to name Nurmagomedov as his preferred challenger, going as far as to say Nurmagomedov was “scared” when it was rumored that Nurmagomedov had booked a fight with Song Yadong instead (that matchup eventually fizzled).

On his TimboSugarShow podcast, O’Malley accuses Dvalishvili of being the one that is scared.

“Umar wants to fight Merab in January,” O’Malley said. “Petr [Yan] wants to fight Merab in March. I want to fight Merab in April. Merab is absolutely shitting himself terrified of Umar. He doesn’t want to fight Umar. Now he’s saying he wants to fight Petr, he wanted to fight me.

“Petr got 50-45’d by Merab. 50-45.”

O’Malley mention of Petr Yan comes off of Yan’s brilliant performance against Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC Macau this past Saturday. Like O’Malley, Yan is a former bantamweight champion, and like O’Malley he lost a unanimous decision to Dvalishvili when they first fought in March 2023.

Dvalishvili praised Yan following the Figueiredo win, suggesting they have a rematch at UFC 313 in March.

Dvalishvili had also previously mentioned wanting to fight O’Malley again, though that matchup is the most remote possibility for the champion right now with O’Malley currently recovering from hip surgery.

O’Malley is eager to return, but is yet to resume full training.

“I can’t wrestle yet,” O’Malley said. “I can move around, I can hit mitts a little bit, f*cking shadow box, box spar a little bit, cannot grapple at all yet. Probably about three weeks out from being able to start drilling. Got to f*cking take care of this nut. Hitting mitts, moving around, it’s no issue. It’s the grappling and shit that hurts.”