UFC 306 Technical Preview: Throwing a Wrench into The Machine

Can Sean O'Malley disrupt the relentless pace and offense of Merab Dvalishvili or is his only hope to win by knockout early?

One-sided Question

One of the absolute best fights in the sport has finally materialized. It took winning ten fights in a row for Merab Dvalishvili to finally earn his chance at gold. This was in part due to his unwillingness to fight his teammate, former champion Aljamain Sterling.

But it was also because the UFC was eager to line their burgeoning star Sean O’Malley into a favorable matchup with Marlon Vera. That’s a promotional move that indicates a level of protection from tough opponents that isn’t offered to most fighters.

Now that the two best bantamweights are finally going to square off, we get to dig into a very intriguing style matchup. While on the surface it may seem like the classic striker versus grappler, there’s a lot more to it than that.

My estimate is that the biggest questions need to be directed at the champion rather than the challenger. That’s not to make an overarching statement about who is better. It’s an observation that in ten fights of increasingly difficult competition, no bantamweight has been able to stop Dvalishvili from enforcing his insane pace and pressure.

So while O’Malley might just have the tools to do exactly that, the impetus is on him to craft a gameplan that prevents the challenger from doing what he has done to each of his recent opponents.

Early Danger

Let’s get it out of the way now that there’s a big possibility that Sean O’Malley just knocks Dvalishvili out early. We’ve seen him do it to Sterling, who on a very broad level employed a similar strategy to what his teammate will look to do at UFC 306.

O’Malley makes reads really early, hits really hard, and can punish habitual mistakes with a singular strike better than almost any other fighter can. After the paywall let’s take a look at how O’Malley quickly keyed in on Sterling’s shifting entries and the vulnerabilities it created: