There was almost a collective groan when the UFC 316 main event was announced for a rematch between bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili and Sean O’Malley.
The curious matchmaking came together after Dvalishvili definitively beat O’Malley for the title this past September and then went onto defend his belt against Umar Nurmagomedov in January. Meanwhile, O’Malley hasn’t fought since losing the fight to Dvalishvili and he was only one defense into his title reign before losing the belt, which made an immediate rematch seem unlikely.
But despite the negative reaction to the fight, UFC bantamweight contender Cory Sandhagen understood why the rematch got made, especially when looking at the lay of the land at 135 pounds.
“I think that the O’Malley fight, it’s just one of those situations where there’s really nobody else,” Sandhagen told MMA Fighting. “I don’t really care to be too much of a hater on O’Malley because if there’s one golden shiny person that should be fighting for the belt next, then it would feel a little bit wrong.
“But in O’Malley’s defense, there really isn’t anyone else. I’m coming off of a loss. Umar [Nurmagomedov] just lost for the title. [Petr] Yan has lost to both of them already. I think that’s just one of those situations.”
It’s tough to argue against that logic unless Dvalishvili ends up sitting out for a significant amount of time waiting for a new contender to emerge.
For his part, Sandhagen hopes he states his case for that next title shot when he faces Deiveson Figueiredo in the upcoming UFC Des Moines card from Iowa on May 3.
“I will say and I think that I’m going to be able to make some waves after this fight if I go out and win the way that I know that I can,” Sandhagen said. “Because especially against a guy like Figgy, I know I can look very, very good against and very impressive against just because our styles work well for that for me, I think that if I go out and do that, I think I can be the next guy to fight for the belt, which like I said, if you think about it, O’Malley or Merab wins, regardless of who it is, the entire world wants to watch me and O’Malley fight really badly. That’s what the fans are really asking for.
“Then Merab, I’m the only one that he hasn’t had to fight in the top five right now. I do think if I can go out and be really impressive, I’ll put myself in a spot where there’s no one else so let’s choose Cory, which would be really nice to have happen to me once instead of me getting so close and then losing and having someone else jump in there. That’s what I’m banking on. I’m even going to ask them if I can be the backup fighter in June right after that one so I’ll just train right there that for another couple of weeks. Hopefully that will be what my year looks like, fighting for the belt at the end of it.”
The timing couldn’t work out much better for Sandhagen and he makes a valid point about the bantamweight division, especially if he can go out and dispose of Figueiredo in impressive fashion.
Potentially serving as the backup to the title fight wouldn’t hurt his chances either.
As far as the rematch goes, Sandhagen doesn’t know if enough has changed for O’Malley to get past Dvalishvili considering how their initial meeting ended.
“I think that O’Malley’s way of winning that first fight was to catch Merab,” Sandhagen explained. “That’s always the fun part about MMA, you never really know what’s going to happen because there is that ability for the fight to end like this. I think that was O’Malley’s ability to win against a Merab. O’Malley’s wrestling isn’t as good as it needs to be in order to beat a Merab or to stop that guy’s shot or to get up significantly quick in order that it cancels out. He’s just not that type of grappler.
“Maybe he’s gotten a lot better, I don’t know but I mean any time you give the puncher’s chance guy another full 25 minutes to figure it out, he might. He’s really good at it. He did it against [Aljamain] Sterling. But if I were a betting man, I’d probably put my money on Merab because betting on the puncher’s chance guy, I don’t think it’s statistically the way that it always works out. That’s what makes this sport fun.”
While O’Malley claimed after rewatching the first fight that he deserved to get the victory, Sandhagen believes that’s just the former champion doing his part to convince the world that he should get this rematch.
“The fight wasn’t close,” Sandhagen said. “Merab was in control of that fight almost the entire time. But that’s what guys in this sport do. They have something happen, they change the narrative around it a little bit and then people start believing that narrative because that’s how marketing works.
“That’s probably why he’s fighting for the belt now over me! Not exactly but yeah, so some people play it smart. I kind of play it stupid and honest but that’s just the way I am.”
Expectations for the rematch might seem low right now but Sandhagen still expects an entertaining title when Dvalishvili and O’Malley meet again in June.
More than anything, Sandhagen just wants to get the job done against Figueiredo on May 3 so he can then turn his full attention to that title fight with hopes that he’ll get the winner before the end of 2025.
“It’s not going to be a bad fight,” Sandhagen said. “Even the first fight wasn’t horrible. I think that O’Malley, he kind of came out and said it, too, he kind of overpromised and underdelivered. Maybe this time he won’t try to overpromise so there won’t be too much expectation around the fight. It’s hard for me to imagine that fight going any differently but I hope O’Malley wins.
“He’s an exciting guy to have the division as champ and like I said, the entire world wants to watch me and O’Malley fight. I think that will be a very convincing argument for me to take to the UFC if I go out and beat Figgy the way that I can and O’Malley beats Merab the way that maybe he can. I think that would be a pretty exciting and convincing argument to bring to the UFC after this one.”
