Merab Dvalishvili has revealed he’s ready for any potential rematch with Sean O’Malley.
Dvalishvili won the UFC bantamweight title from O’Malley in September, dominating him at Las Vegas‘ Sphere at UFC 306 – one of the organisation’s biggest events of the year.
UFC President Dana White said the historic event, which was rebranded as Noche UFC for promotional purposes, drew a record $22million gate.
Dvalishvili has the opportunity to defend his belt for the first time against Umar Nurmagomedov this weekend.
Nurmagomedov is undefeated in a 18 professional MMA bouts and is trained by UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Although the Russian will be no easy task for Dvalishvili, he has already thought ahead to a potential rematch with O’Malley.
“Yes, no problem,” Dvalishvili told talkSPORT.com when asked whether he would welcome a rematch with ‘Suga’.
“I think the UFC wants a rematch and I have no problem with that.
“You know, I will fight anybody. Whoever the UFC wants me to fight. I never make the decision on who I fight but whoever the UFC asks me to face, I always say yes.
“For example, I am fighting Umar Nurmagomedov now. He doesn’t deserve it yet, he was supposed to fight one more time and he took a shortcut…
“I have my opinion of course, but I will always respect the UFC’s decisions and I always do what my company wants to do and how my bosses want to do it.”
O’Malley revealed in December that he was cutting out the ‘biggest distraction’ of his life in social media to put his name back in a championship bout.
The 30-year-old from Montana underwent surgery after his bout with Georgia’s Dvalishvili to repair a torn shoulder labrum, and is targeting a return in the first quarter of 2025.
Dvalishvili revealed last month that he feels like Conor McGregor in his life as world champion, comparing the backlash he’s received since becoming a new titleholder to Jon Jones and Mike Tyson.
‘The Machine’ had some words of advice for O’Malley following his comments on quitting social media.
“I mean, that’s up to him, but it’s very hard to quit social media, man,” the 34-year-old said.
“You want to connect with your followers, and give them the love back, you know.
“It’s hard to keep up. He lost and maybe he is getting a lot of hate and I understand that, but today we live in reality we need social media we need to connect with our followers.
“Sometimes it takes up a lot of my times. But I go on there and I see a lot of drama. I don’t know how he will do it, but that’s his choice. If he is able to do it, good luck with that.”
Dvalishvili made his UFC debut in 2017, and was on the cusp of being cut from White’s roster after losing his first two fights in the promotion to Frankie Saenz and Ricky Simon.
He then went on a ten-fight win streak, beating Jose Aldo, Henry Cejudo and Petr Yan among others, with the O’Malley victory becoming his 11th successive triumph in the UFC.
Elsewhere at UFC 311, Jiri Prochazka faces Jamahal Hill in a top light-heavyweight bout.
Both men were knocked out by UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira in 1014.
Beneil Dariush challenges Renato Moicano in a lightweight fight on the main card too, and Kevin Holland takes on Reinier de Ridder on in the middleweight division.
