O'Malley had 'nervous feeling' going into UFC 316 345f3b

Sean O'Malley said he was more nervous than usual ahead of his rematch with bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316. 3i131d

"I definitely was more - I definitely felt this kind of nervous feeling that I'm not used to," O'Malley said in a video published Tuesday on his YouTube channel.

O'Malley came up short in his attempt to regain the 135-pound title last weekend in Newark, suffering a third-round submission loss. He dropped the belt in a lopsided decision defeat to Dvalishvili at UFC 306 last September and said he was anxious about the rematch going the same way.

"Just because of how the first fight played out, knowing his cardio is so crazy, knowing if it hits the ground. I knew I had worked on the takedown defense so much, and I knew I was able to get up, but I'm like, 'I also know there's a chance that this fight plays out the same way it did,'" O'Malley said. "I was more nervous this fight probably than I've ever been."

He added: "(I was) in the cage, like, 'All right, if this motherf----r grabs hold of me, there's a chance that I can't get away from this little f----r."

O'Malley, who won the bantamweight title in 2023 and successfully defended it once, suffered back-to-back losses for the first time in his professional career.

Even though the fight with Dvalishvili again ended in decisive fashion, O'Malley is confident he upped his game over the last nine months.

"I feel like I got so much better this fight," O'Malley said. "I feel like I was able to show that that camp. But just being on bottom. ... He just felt so f-----g compact and strong in there. I feel like I couldn't do much. ... (He's the) greatest of all time. Greatest bantamweight of all time."

Emotionally, the 30-year-old former champion said he's at peace with the outcome.

"I don't feel sad at all," O'Malley said. "I still feel very happy. I feel a little disappointed in the outcome. I feel a little frustrated. But there's no sadness inside of me. ... I'll close my eyes and I'll picture things. When (Dvalishvili) started locking up the guillotine, I could've done this, I could've done that. But I'm like, 'Ah, man, there's nothing I can do about it now.' Kind of onto the next thought. I'm not sitting in that thought, just letting it kind of unravel and go down a negative hole. I still feel very good."

And if O'Malley ever gets the chance to fight Dvalishvili again?

"I still know I can beat Merab," O'Malley said. "Call it delusional, call it whatever, it's how I got to where I'm at right now. I still know I can beat Merab."