Sean O’Malley has a brief message for the critics of his UFC 316 rematch with bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili.
It was confirmed last week that former 135-pound champ O’Malley will once again face Georgia’s Dvalishvili, this time in Newark, New Jersey on June 7 in what amounts to an immediate rematch for O’Malley after he dropped the title via unanimous decision at UFC 306 back in September.
The announcement, though, wasn’t quite greeted by some fight fans too enthusiastically, with many suggesting on social media that the UFC should have gone in another direction given O’Malley’s somewhat tepid performance in their first fight.
But referencing the criticism to Ariel Helwani, (as noted by MMA Fighting), O’Malley had a two-word response: “Don’t watch.”
“Saturday night, June 7, f*cking watch your reality TV show. Don’t watch the fight.” he said.
“I’m very grateful for the UFC for giving me the rematch,” O’Malley added. “I didn’t really have much conversation with UFC. I did tell them that was really the only fight I was interested in. I wanted the belt back — it wasn’t even I wanted the belt back, I wanted Merab. I wanted that fight back and there wasn’t much negotiation there. It was kind of like, alright, let’s do it.”
Dvalishvili has competed once since his win over O’Malley, defeating Umar Nurmagomedov by decision this past January, but O’Malley says that there will likely be more eyes on his next fight regardless of any bickering online.
“That last fight, I don’t think a lot of people went and truly rewatched it because it’s not one of those fights that it’s super worth rewatching,” O’Malley said. “I do think the second time watching it, you realize it is a little bit closer than the first time you watched it live, but I don’t think many people rewatched it and they weren’t interested in rewatching it and their opinions are just going to kind of stay the same.
“Again, they’re not interested, don’t watch it. But when I go out there and win, I guarantee people are going to rewatch it or at least rewatch the finish if there’s a finish. Might be a five-round decision, could be a finish, we’ll see. I think at the end of the day, that Saturday rolls around, people are going to be talking about it.”
