Sean O'Malley: Aljamain Sterling 'probably hopes I beat' Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306

UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley has a theory on Merab Dvalishvili and Aljamain Sterling’s friendship.

O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) will look to notch his second title defense when he takes on Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 306 (pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+) main event at Sphere in Las Vegas.

O’Malley knocked out Dvalishvili’s teammate, Sterling, to claim the bantamweight title at UFC 292. He thinks there isn’t any advice Sterling could give Dvalishvili that would help him in the fight.

“I mean, I don’t know what Aljo’s going to tell Merab,” O’Malley told TMZ. “Like, ‘F*ck, he’s fast, he’s sharp, he’s accurate, he’s hard to take down, good luck.’ There wasn’t a lot of success Aljo had in that fight. If anything, Aljo probably shouldn’t tell him anything because it’s probably just going to make him a little bit nervous.”

Dvalishvili and Sterling made it clear that they would never fight each other, which really irked UFC CEO Dana White. That meant as long as Sterling was champion, the streaking Dvalishvili would not get his well-earned title shot. But when Sterling lost his title to O’Malley, he moved up to featherweight so Dvalishvili can realize his championship aspirations. O’Malley questions if Sterling and Dvalishvili have each other’s best interests at heart.

“Who knows? Aljo probably hopes I beat Merab,” O’Malley said. “It makes Aljo look better. I’m just curious if Merab was happy that I knocked out Aljo because if I didn’t knock out Aljo, Merab still would be waiting around. So I have a little theory that maybe they’re not as good buddies as we all thought.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.