Sean O’Malley promises better performance in Merab Dvalishvili rematch at UFC 316: ‘I’m going to fight at my full potential’

Sean O’Malley promises a better performance this time around against Merab Dvalishvili.

On Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White revealed that O’Malley will challenge Dvalishvili for the bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 316 in June, a rematch of their UFC 306 title fight that saw Dvalishvili win by dominant decision. But O’Malley insists things will be different this time.

“The rematch is official,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “‘Suga’ Sean vs. Merab 2 is happening, and I don’t think people are going to be too happy about it. ...

“The last time I fought the best bantamweight in the world—the best bantamweight at the time [Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292]—I got the job done. I’m very confident in my skills. Last camp we had some shit going on. I don’t want to sit here and make excuses. We had a great camp, I showed up, I was in shape, we did what we could with what we were able to do. This camp has already been a lot different and I’m feeling good. I’m excited to go out there and take care of business.”

O’Malley getting another crack at Dvalishvili was met with backlash from the MMA community. Their first fight was a clear win for “The Machine,” who has since defended his title against Umar Nurmagomedov. O’Malley, meanwhile, has not fought since losing to Dvalishvili. Instead, “Suga” underwent surgery to fix a hip issue and has been recovering. However, O’Malley says he’s already in training camp for this rematch and intends to prove that Dvalishvili only won the first fight because he wasn’t at his best.

“Last fight camp, every single journal entry was like, ‘My groin kept me up at night’ because I tore my labrum 10 weeks before the fight,” O’Malley said. “I tore my groin labrum and I was having serious groin pain. It was super—it wasn’t ideal. I was able to train, I was able to tough through it, but obviously it’s not ideal to go into a fight, especially against a f*cking murderer—well, not a murderer, but a stud, an absolute machine [like Merab]. ...

“If I can just keep this pace up, how we’ve been able to train the last few weeks, all the way up to the fight, I’m going to be 70 percent better than I was in that first fight. I’m going to be significantly more mobile, agile, better shape. I’m going to fight at my full potential. Whereas my last fight, I was very happy with how I was able to perform considering how I felt. It wasn’t ideal, the outcome, I didn’t win, but I also think I wasn’t supposed to win. This rematch was supposed to happen. It’s going to make this win that much more crazy.”

UFC 316 goes down June 7 at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.