At first glance, Saturday night’s event between UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili seems a bit confusing. It’s a pay-per-view officially named “UFC 306: Riyadh Season Noche UFC,” blending Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship with the celebration of Mexican Independence Day, though neither O’Malley nor Dvalishvili has any Mexican heritage. (As O’Malley has clarified, because his wife and daughter are Mexican, he more than qualifies.)
To make matters even more exciting, the event will be held at Sphere in Las Vegas. An immersive show is planned to take place throughout the night, with six short films honoring Mexican fighters, past and present. In some ways, the clash of optics is fitting for the main event. It is not only a contrast of styles and body types, but also a tale of two very different career trajectories.
Back in 2017, the UFC discovered Merab on the aptly named Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight, a UFC-produced series in which Dana White visits regional fight scenes to find talent. Merab beat Raufeon Stots that night in New Jersey, earning himself a UFC contract. However, at the time, it seemed like no one paid much attention. White and his fellow talent scout, Matt Serra, were actually there to watch Merab’s teammate, James Gonzalez, fight. Merab ended up being a pleasant surprise.
That same year, O’Malley made a breakthrough on another of the UFC’s talent-finding vehicles, Dana White’s Contender Series, which, by contrast, came with a tremendous amount of fanfare. With former WEC champion Urijah Faber and Snoop Dogg providing commentary, O’Malley—stretching 135 pounds into a wiry, 5-foot-11 frame—dropped a lot of jaws by knocking out Alfred Khashakyan with an incredible walk-off right hand. As he climbed the fence and shouted, “Welcome to the Suga Show,” the UFC knew it had a star on its hands.
“I’m looking for exciting, I’m looking for flashy,” Dana White said after O’Malley’s performance. “I’m looking for somebody who has that thing. Sean O’Malley is that thing.”
First impressions mean everything because, seven years later, O’Malley has emerged as one of the biggest stars in the UFC. Who else would they ask to headline such a unique, high-priced card surrounded by a 160,000-square-foot high-definition LED screen? It seems that everywhere you look, O’Malley’s snow cone of curly locks can be spotted as he poses for photo ops and rocks endorsements. Sometimes he’s sparking a blunt with Snoop Dogg. Sometimes he’s hanging out with 6ix9ine and the Nelk Boys. More recently, he launched a deodorant line with Jake Paul, which they are calling “W.” If you saw the Tom Brady roast back in May, there was “Suga” Sean hanging out with Boston’s own Dana White, happily catching the occasional jab from roastmaster Jeff Ross.
O’Malley has handled the spotlight with expert ease, proving his haters wrong in the cage. Many doubted he would defeat Petr Yan in a contender’s bout, but he did (albeit controversially, as some believed he lost on the scorecards). Critics claimed he was “gifted” his title shot against Merab’s friend and training partner, Aljamain Sterling, but he made the most of his opportunity. In a dramatic second-round knockout, with Boston chanting his name, he won the belt.
O’Malley possesses the aura of a unicorn and a range that can ruin your night. He is the UFC’s fever dream, a psychedelic experience that rivals anything dripping down the walls at Sphere.
That’s why the UFC is trusting the Suga Show to headline a card that is costing around $20 million to put on. If O’Malley rolls through Dvalishvili, the lid will blow off Sphere, setting up an even bigger fight. Perhaps O’Malley will get his wish to fight Conor McGregor, or maybe it will be Umar Nurmagomedov waiting in the wings, or Deiveson Figueiredo, or the winner of the fight between Max Holloway and featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. Big-name boxers are mentioning his name, too.
Yet anyone who has been watching knows it’s a fool’s game to overlook the relatively unsung Dvalishvili, a Georgian fighter who moved to New York at 21 years old to pursue a career in MMA. Merab is the polar opposite of O’Malley, standing 5-foot-6 on his tippy-toes, but he has proved he can wrestle a man into a real-time existential crisis. He is known as “the Machine” for a reason—he is super quick, as he demonstrated in his bout with former champion José Aldo, and he turns into a Tasmanian devil in scrambles. He sets a pace that defies all rules and conventions. While most fighters fade down the stretch, Merab only gets stronger. He’s a demon in the clinch and attacks the lead leg with relentless cardio.
He says he will wear down the spindly O’Malley and bring the fight to him, and the evidence suggests that Merab doesn’t know any other way.
“I think so, especially because I have five rounds,” he told The Ringer. “I think it favors me because I become even better by the fourth round or fifth round. I will break him. That’s what I believe, and that’s what I’m looking for.”
Additionally, there’s an X factor that should be mentioned. The dude is a little out there.
Merab’s notoriety didn’t really come from the UFC’s marketing arm or from his first handful of victories in the promotion. It came when he posted a video on social media of him diving headfirst into a frozen pond. On a jog through the snow in full winter gear, he pulled up to the sheet of ice and simply couldn’t resist. He stripped down to his shorts and, without hesitation, dove right in, popping up an instant later holding his head. He didn’t realize there were tree branches submerged just under the ice, which busted his dome wide open.
Silly, right? But by posting it knowing just how silly it was—presto. Silly becomes endearing!
From that point on, fans took a shine to the guy whose name they couldn’t pronounce training with Ray Longo on Long Island because he had an apparent screw loose. That post became a kind of meme, but it put Merab on the map. Since then, through a 10-fight win streak in which he’s beaten three former champions in a row, Merab has been posting comical skits and flashes of his life, including just a few weeks ago, when he proudly showed off a fresh gash in his head that he suffered in training camp.
That post, which caused immediate alarm that he may be forced out of his fight with O’Malley on such a big card, sent Dana White over the top.
“The whole world now knows about Merab’s cut, [because] he posted it,” White said. “Our guys are so dumb it’s next level, unbelievable.”
How did Merab respond? He posted a video of himself removing his own stitches with a big pair of unsanitary shears. At that point, Dana suggested that Merab had to be trolling him.
“No, I post everything on my social media,” Merab says. “Like that time I accidentally break my head, I was the only one who recorded it myself, and I knew if I posted that video people would say I was stupid. But at the same time, I’m not hiding nothing. This is my lifestyle; this is how I live. That’s why I’m a fighter. That’s why I’m different than normal people.”
Saturday night, the UFC may transition from being the Suga Show to becoming part of the Machine. It would be a sharp turn from where both fighters began seven years ago, with one crashing onto the scene like a lightning bolt and the other sneaking in from the woodwork in New Jersey.
“I think Dana will be rooting for Sean O’Malley since O’Malley won the Contender Series; he finished his opponent,” Dvalishvili says. “He became a star, and he became a UFC-favorite fighter. I understand he’s a star, and he’s special, and, like Dana says, he’s a thing.
“We all know Sean O’Malley was fighting guys from outside of top 15, and only one top guy. He fought Petr Yan, and then they robbed Petr Yan—the judges did. And then from there they saved him for the belt, and he used his chance. Now he’s a champion. He’s a good fighter, but he’s been favored a little bit.”
If the UFC was protecting O’Malley by booking him into a “winnable” revenge fight against Marlon “Chito” Vera for his first title defense at UFC 299, it is doing just the opposite this time around. Dvalishvili is a fighter nobody wants to face, yet he made himself undeniable as the next man up. In between the first and second rounds of his fight with the betting favorite Petr Yan last March, Yan’s corner, sensing that their man was being overwhelmed, had to remind Yan that Dvalishvili was merely a human being. That he was mortal.
When they lock the cage door and Merab starts to siphon the gas tanks of world-class fighters, something happens that renders the best game plans moot. Whether Merab can do that against a superior striker like O’Malley is where the drama lies for UFC 306. If O’Malley overcomes Merab, the UFC will have its biggest star not named Conor McGregor. But the alternative requires some use of the imagination.
At least one person has thought about why the Merab Era might be good for business—and that is Merab himself. All those years ago when Dana said he was looking for that thing, which he’d found in Sean O’Malley? The man who jumped into a frozen lake believes he has it, too.
“Dana White was the one who found me in Lookin’ for a Fight in New Jersey when I was fighting for the belt,” he says. “I think that’s kind of good for the company, to have a new face.”
Chuck Mindenhall writes about combat sports without bias, and sometimes about his Denver teams with extreme bias. He cohosts The Ringer MMA Show on Spotify.
