Max Holloway isn’t in Las Vegas this weekend to take part in the big UFC 306 event featuring Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili. He’s staying in Hawaii, where he’s training for his own big fight against Ilia Topuria in October at UFC 308. But he’s been closely following the buildup to O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili and now shares his prediction for the fight in a new YouTube video.
“Merab – great endurance, great pressure, great fighter,” Holloway said. “But one weakness in his game that we’ve seen time and time again is that he gets caught. He gets caught, and he gets caught early. It’s almost like he needs to be woken up, and then he finally switches on and the gears start working. Everything starts flowing and he gets going.”
“But if there’s one guy in the bantamweight division you don’t want to get caught by, it’s Sean. A lot of guys tease Sean because he’s skinny and lanky and tall and looks fragile and blah blah blah. He looks like that. He dyes his hair, bro. That’s just the way he is. That’s the way he acts. But you can’t deny that this guy can fight.”
“This guy can hit,” he continued. “He knocks people down. He scores. He’s a sharpshooter. And I think in this fight, a lot of people were asking me and waiting to see who I was going to pick. I’m taking Sean, man. I’m taking Sean.”
“Merab, he likes to get hit,” Holloway concluded. “And if you give a guy like Sean O’Malley the opportunity to get hit and he hurts you, there’s a 90 percent chance he’s going to take you down and throw you away. And that’s the only reason I run with Sean.”
Before his title fight against Aljamain Sterling in August 2023, not many people gave O’Malley much of a chance. But after dodging Aljo’s punch and knocking him out with a perfect counter, everyone sees “Suga’s” path to victory against Merab. Yes, he’ll have to stand tall to do that. But every round starts standing up, and Dvalishvili has one win in his 12 UFC fights.
That means O’Malley has at least five chances to get past Dvalishvili. He caught Sterling at the end of the second round. Can he get past “The Machine” early on, or will Merab’s relentless pressure put him on the defensive? We like Max Holloway’s assessment of the fight, but the bookies have this fight a near-certainty win, and for good reason.
