Merab Dvalishvili’s Coach Believes Featherweight Is a Bad Idea for Sean O’Malley

While Sean O'Malley’s  immediate future remains uncertain, Merab Dvalishvili’s coach, John Wood, advises against a featherweight move. 

O’Malley’s short bantamweight title reign ended with a unanimous decision loss against Dvalishvili last year. “Suga” got a chance at redemption in a rematch at UFC 316 last weekend in Newark, New Jersey. Dvalishvili dominated O’Malley for two rounds before submitting him in the third. 

With consecutive title losses against Dvalishvili, O’Malley is far removed from the title picture as long as the Georgian remains champion. Considering he’ll have to fight down the rankings now, O’Malley must return to the drawing board. 

However, Wood notes that the UFC doesn’t always work based on merit or rankings. Wood believes a star like O’Malley could be back in title conversations with a few flashy wins. 

It’s been speculated that moving up to featherweight is the way forward for O’Malley, who has teased it in the past. However, Wood doesn’t think O’Malley has the frame for 145 pounds. According to Wood, there are several good matchups for O’Malley at 135 pounds before considering a move to featherweight.

“The best guy should always fight the next best guy and the next best guy to the champion. That’s not the way it goes,” Wood told MMAFighting.com. “So I do see a potential of [O’Malley] being back in the mix after some time… 145? Those guys are big. And O’Malley does have the size and the range. But he’ll have to stack on some muscle. He doesn’t have a big frame from what I see. So that might not be the smartest thing. But I think there’s a lot of good fights for him that he can win at ‘35 and figure it out from there.”