September 14 will go down as one of the most important and iconic nights for the UFC, with numerous big moments. It had everything from the Fight of the Night between Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber to Valentina Shevchenko reclaiming the title from Alexa Grasso. However, the biggest talking point remains the main event fight between Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili for the bantamweight title. Besides ‘Suga’s unexpected loss, the fight’s unusual start and stoppage have sparked much discussion. Amid all this, Dana White has now explained the reason behind it.
After the bell rang, Merab was always high on adrenaline and eager to get started against O’Malley. However, the fight saw an abrupt halt, leaving fans curious about the reason behind it. White later explained at the press conference that the veteran referee, Herb Dean, had stopped the action to prevent Dvalishvili from trash-talking O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch.
He explained, “He didn’t call timeout, what happened was, Merab and O’Malley’s corner were screaming at each other. At the whole beginning of the fight they were yelling at each other and Herb Dean stepped in and told them to knock it off.”
Welch received a warning for “excessive coaching,” but it didn’t impact his fighter, ‘Suga,’ much. For those who didn’t know, there was tension between Welch and Merab; the new bantamweight champ even wanted to slap him. Ultimately, Merab silenced Welch with his dominant win.
Dana White Shares His Thoughts On Sean O’Malley‘s Poor Show Against Merab Dvalishvili
There’s no doubt that White sees O’Malley as the company’s next big thing, so much so that many started looking at him as the next Conor McGregor. However, everything turned into disappointment after the way the Dvalishvili’s outstanding victory against O’Malley. Moreover, after the fight, everyone was eager to hear what White had to say, and just like many, he was disappointed, too.
Talking about the fight, he said, “I don’t disagree with you. He looked flat, didn’t look sharp [and] he didn’t look crisp until the last round. He hurt him with the body shot, he knew that he’d hurt him with the body shot, and he kept going in trying to finish, but yeah, I looked at the punch stats [and] it was like six in a couple of those rounds.”
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The UFC CEO said ‘Suga’ seemed off until the last round, landing only a few punches and hurting his opponent once. Now, it’ll be interesting to see how O’Malley bounces back. Since his claimed ‘Suga Era’ is still an exciting sight for fans, he needs to recover quickly and reclaim his glory.
