This past Saturday night in the main event of UFC 306, the bantamweight title was on the line. Sean O’Malley (18-2) was looking to defend his title against Merab Dvalishvili (18-4). Going into the fight, I figured there was really only two outcomes for the matchup.
Either Sean O’Malley was going to land something big and knock Dvalishvili out, or Dvalishvili was going to have a suffocating performance which would lead to a decision win. Turns out, the latter is what happened as O’Malley was dominated over the course of five rounds by the new UFC bantamweight champion.
O’Malley didn’t look great inside the cage and Dana White said after the event that the former champion looked flat. O’Malley to his credit has made no excuses, but he has announced that he’s heading for hip surgery the first week of October. The former champion suffered a torn labrum 10 weeks ago and will have surgery to repair it.
What’s next for the former UFC champion?
Yesterday, we published an article on what should be next for O’Malley. Of course, this was before there was any knowledge about his hip injury. O’Malley is estimating that he will be out of action anywhere from six months to a year. My guess is that the earliest we’d see O’Malley is International Fight Week next July.
It’ll be interesting to see what the UFC’s bantamweight landscape is next summer. There’s a chance O’Malley could come right back to a title shot should all the pieces align. However, I think it’s more likely that he comes back to a five-round co-main event that’ll be a title eliminator.