UFC 316: Dvalishvili vs O’Malley 2 - Jun 7 ??

[Egg Shen]

Weird build for this, I think im a little more detached than usual but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest going in. O'Malley seems to have completely dropped the 'Suga' schtick and just appears focussed on the fight (which is probably a good thing), and i've seen a few things on twitter that suggest Merab seems a bit off during fight week also. Hoping the show delivers.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, I think it was always gonna be a pretty dead build up. A rematch nobody was asking for in the main event and a Julianna Pena co-main. It’s not the best.

This is mad. First pic is Kayla Harrison making 135 yesterday. The second pic is from the ceremonial weigh ins about five hours later. 

Obviously we’ve all been watching long enough to know what weight cutting does and this isn’t news. But it’s crazy what a few hours of rehydrating does. She almost looks like a different person.

Still not confident it’s not gonna badly impact her performance tonight though. She should win because Pena’s awful, and if this fight was at 145 I’d be confidently picking Harrison without hesitation. But one thing I’ll say for Pena is she can take a beating. So Harrison might not be able to get rid of her early. And if this goes into the later rounds, that’s when we’re gonna see the effects of the rough weight cut. 

Edited June 7, 2025 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

The usual…

[Browser Brady]

Dvalishvili Is going to be champ for a while isnt he.

 

i like him. 

[sirdobbo89]

I had the prelims on in the background, skipped through a few, watched a few etc, the highlight being Yoo Joo-Sang absolutely starching some poor lad to the shadow realm. 

Kevin Holland has always been an entertaining bloke, win or lose. Glad to see him have a good showing. Everyone and their mum is calling out Colby because he's pretty much shot, wouldn't mind Holland being the one to finish his UFC run. 

Kayla did what was expected and with ease. Looking forward to her and Nunes. Not sure how old Nunes is but to come back after chilling with the family/kids to batter a beast like Kayla will be a tall order. She seems so happy watching the fights with the fam. Everyone's gonna get paid megabucks like. Would be a cracking story if Nunes could do it. She's going to be the underdog surely? 

Pretty difficult to not like Merab. What a happy fella. Smiling like a Cheshire cat in the middle of his title fight. Cardio is off the charts. Don't know the division that well but can't see anyone taking the belt off him anytime soon, and I'm glad. Lovely chap. 

Keith Peterson looks like a different person, Christ.

[Bus Surfer]

Regarding Harrison / Nunes, it's baffling that they seemingly had no intention of putting Nunes in the cage post fight until Rogan willed it into existence. That was a nice little moment with the face off that really made it feel big time. I would have absolutely no issue in letting those two fight at 145. They are heads and shoulders above the rest, so why not let them fight without killing each other weight cut wise. They'll probably both retire after it's done anyways and the belt is worthless already in that division. 

Merab just continues to improve everywhere. O'Malley must be questioning everything in his existence after sacrificing a lot to get beaten more comprehensively. 

Not a bad show, Holland had a good showing and Josh Van is gonna made 125 interesting. 

Far too much pandering to the orange Goblin throughout though. 

[Kfogg1991]

Well this turned into such a enjoyable show.

I have said to the world that the route they went with pushing Sean too fast too quickly would result in a huge decline and exposure and it's what has happened. Merab is a machine and I said submission within the first 3 rounds.

Kayla winning and getting Amanda next brought me to tears of happiness, I love Amanda and love Kayla so it felt really special.

 

I give up I'm not bigging up any former belaltor guys cos they flat line in the lights, I thought patchy was going to show the world who he was and he did the exact opposite and went the Pitbull way.

 

The dude getting knocked into the shadow realm in the prelims was fantastic.

Onto the next and international fight week.

[Carbomb]

Whilst I'm glad for Merab, and it's clear the guy is a machine, it seems to me, from how close the match with Umar Nurmagomedov was, that those two could end up becoming career rivals. I wouldn't doubt Umar could take the belt off Merab in a couple of years' time, and I wouldn't doubt Merab could get it back.

Edited June 10, 2025 by Carbomb
Paul Jewell

[Bruce85]

Really enjoyable show, even the heavyweight prelim fight wasn’t as shit as I was expecting lol. 
 

As others have said Merab looked unstoppable in there, it’s hard to see who’s going to beat him. Think he will hold onto the belt until old Father Time catches up to him. I thought Sean’s takedown defence was alright but Merab is just relentless, it felt like Sean was just waiting for the takedown and was hesitant to throw. 
 

So satisfying seeing Harrison get a decisive victory! The fight with Amanda should be good, could see her calling it a day after that (win or lose). I can’t remember the refs name but thought it was a good call to take the point away, no messing around with warnings! 
 

Well Patchy Mix shit the bed on his IFC debut, looked frozen in the first 2 rounds. I’ve not seen loads of his fights but seen him with more head movement than that before. 
 

I thought Van looked amazing in the featured prelim, could see him climbing the ranks and getting a title shot rather quickly. 
 

 

[Egg Shen]

1 hour ago, Bruce85 said:

 

 

Well Patchy Mix shit the bed on his IFC debut, looked frozen in the first 2 rounds. I’ve not seen loads of his fights but seen him with more head movement than that before. 
 

 

 

Awful debut. Not helped with Mix admitting beforehand he was overlooking Bautista and wouldnt be next for the title. It was like he forgot how to fight in there. He looked like a shit Diaz Brother. Weird.

Prelim highlight other than the faceplant KO was Andres Gustafsson's debut. That guy is an animal, get him in there with some fellow sluggers and it's going to be chaos. Big fan.

[Dai]

Was an OK main card. Holland looked good and got the nice finish. Patchy Mix looked even worse than Pitbull in his debut. Might be over for him on the PPV's already. What on earth happened to Pyfer? He went a whisker away from a super impressive stoppage in R1 to being absolutley dreadful for the next two, to the point no one will remember this win in a fond way. It wasnt as if he gassed himself out in R1 looking for the finish. Just fell off a cliff, performance wise, at the end of round 1. Wand must have been extremely satisfied with how the Pena fight went. Completley outclassed and controlled. 

 

We have all watched this sport long enough to know that its extremely rare for one guy to dominate for any huge/significant periods of time, so I wont get too carried away with the "Merab will dominate for years" and career rivals with Umar talk, but on this night, its not too difficult to imagine such a thing. This sport is brutal though, and in a year or two's time we could all be talking about his fall from grace. We've seen it with plenty of others. As of now though, he looks phenominal.

[Carbomb]

3 hours ago, Dai said:

We have all watched this sport long enough to know that its extremely rare for one guy to dominate for any huge/significant periods of time, so I wont get too carried away with the "Merab will dominate for years" and career rivals with Umar talk, but on this night, its not too difficult to imagine such a thing. This sport is brutal though, and in a year or two's time we could all be talking about his fall from grace. We've seen it with plenty of others. As of now though, he looks phenominal.

When I mention about them being potentially career rivals, though, I do mean that I think it's premature to talk about Merab dominating and holding on to the belt for years. BW is a shark tank anyway, but also, impressive as Merab has been, even some of the guys he's beaten on the way up have shown something about them that suggests some of them could evolve to beat him someday. Umar in particular came so close that it would be foolish to write him off as a future contender just because Merab beat him the first time they fought (I doubt that they won't fight again).

Edited June 9, 2025 by Carbomb
Franz Wolfahrt

[Egg Shen]

Over 5 rounds, Merab is a nightmare. He's probably the best 5 round fighter we've ever seen. If you can't match his tank you have to do serious damage when he's not engaging because he'll just rack up rounds and drown you down the stretch. It feels like the only way to beat him is to simply catch him with a hail mary type shot/sub but no ones really come close yet. Sandhagan is capable, I just cant see it.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, it’s gonna be a bastard trying to get that belt off Merab isn’t it?

It’s genuinely starting to feel like the rest of the division might have to just wait for him to age out a bit. He’s 34 now so, by lighter weight class standards, he’s surely coming to the end of his absolute peak. No signs of him slowing down yet though. Actually thought O’Malley looked better than in the first fight in spells. Merab’s just got a style and an engine that I don’t think O’Malley is ever gonna be able to cope with. He’d always have a puncher’s chance but if they fought 20 times he might only catch Merab once. It’s almost like the Khabib vs McGregor thing, it’s just a bad match for him. Not sure what’s next. I’d have thought Corey Sandhagen would be the obvious choice and Merab himself has said he feels like Sandhagen is the rightful next in line. But then Dana’s telling the media after the show that Merab vs Umar 2 might be the move. No. Fuck off. As great as that first fight was, I’m sick of these instant rematches. Umar should have to at least win one fight against a top 135er before getting a rematch. It’s not ideal for Umar either. If they rush that rematch and Umar loses again, then he’s 0-2 and that rivalry, which could be a great one, is dead in the water. Umar just lost to Merab in January. He’s not had much experience against top level competition. Him getting another fight or two in, another training camp or two, and having some time to actually work on things and make adjustments is surely the better move and would make a Merab vs Umar 2 fight more interesting down the line. They always wanna rush these trilogies now and as a result they never feel as special as they did years ago.

It’ll be interesting to see how O’Malley rebounds from this. Like I said before, he seemed so convinced that his preparation, lifestyle, training camp and injuries were to blame for the loss last time. He seemed to overhaul everything this time and then still loses, and this time gets finished. That’s gonna be rough to come back from. I wouldn’t mind seeing him give 145 a shot, to be honest. It doesn’t look like Merab’s losing that belt anytime soon and O’Malley’s 0-2 down already. And 145 seems kind of wide open now. With Topuria and Holloway moving up to 155 and Volk probably only having a couple of fights left, the timing could be perfect for O’Malley to make a bit of noise in that division. Bunch of fresh fights as well. O’Malley vs Yair? O’Malley vs Ortega? O’Malley vs Lopes? I’d be up for all that.

18 hours ago, Dai said:

Wand must have been extremely satisfied with how the Pena fight went. 

Oh yes.

Needless to say, absolutely chuffed. If you read any of my posts on this fight in this thread, my concerns about Kayla Harrison possibly losing were all about the weight cut. Aside from that, skill vs skill, I was pretty confident Kayla would win. Pena just isn’t very good. Yeah she was UFC champion twice but there’s so few actually good fighters in the Bantamweight division these days that you don’t necessarily have to be a great fighter to hold gold in that weight class. Of course some are. Your Harrisons, your Nunes and in the past Rousey and Tate were all very good. But with such a shallow division, there’s gonna be periods and circumstances that allow shite like Pena to swoop in and become champ. Her claim to fame is always gonna be that win over Nunes. Fair play for that. But hold that up against the rest of her career and she really just had a great couple of minutes against Nunes on one night. In general, when she faces the best, Pena loses. And thankfully Harrison got this over with early enough that any issues with the weight cut didn’t get chance to rear their head. My fears for the weight cut still stand though. Had this fight gone deep into the championship rounds, who’s to say how she’d have held up? It’s gonna be a concern and a big talking point for every fight she has now at 135 until she retires. And as much as the division can’t afford to lose her, for her own health hopefully that day isn’t too far off.

Finally, finally, a fight at 135 worth giving a shit about! We’ve talked a lot about the lack of really big fights in MMA over the last couple of years but it’s even worse when you just think about the women’s side of the game. Seriously, when was the last truly big fight that felt important like this with the women? Are we going back to the Rousey days? Probably Nunes vs Cyborg? Maybe Zhang vs Joanna 1? It’s been some time. Granted there’s nothing to look forward to after Harrison vs Nunes but it’s something right? Rather this than nothing, which is what we’ve been fed in recent years. Read something that Nunes wants to fight by the end of the year. But also saw Dana say Nunes isn’t in ‘the testing pool’ yet either. There’s still a testing pool? Already seen Pena saying she’s got “first dibs” on the winner of this fight. Aahhhh just FUCK OFF will you. Christ sake. Pena’s the turd that won’t flush. She’s been thoroughly outclassed and dominated by both Harrison and Nunes in 2 of her last 3 fights. How the fuck does she warrant another crack at it? But it’s 2025 and nothing makes sense anymore so she’ll probably get what she wants.

Pyfer vs Gastelum was whatever. Not gonna pretend I even paid a lot of attention to this. Gastelum’s been floundering for what feels like years now and I’ve never been particularly sold on Pyfer. My only slight bit of interest in this was to hopefully see Pyfer get chinned because he’s a cock. But I lost faith in Gastelum to get that done quite quickly and in turn lost any bit of interest in the fight. Pyfer’s one of those twats I can’t wait to see get battered though. Hermansson beating him was nice but I wanna see him get fully humbled and embarrassed like when Big Nog sparked Brendan Schaub or something. And there seems to be enough flaws and holes in his game that you can absolutely see it happening at some point. It’s gonna be sweet when it does.

Mario Bautista is becoming a real spoiler at 135. Drags Aldo into a snoozer and beats him, now he’s ruined the UFC debut of Patchy Mix as well. Awful showing for Mix here. I never saw a ton of Mix in Bellator but I saw enough that I expected better than this. Seen him getting absolutely trashed on Twitter and stuff, the usual shite calling him a fraud and all that. He didn’t look good at all. But it’s worth noting he was coming off a layoff and he did step in on short notice when Chito Vera dropped out. That detail seems to be getting lost in a lot of the fallout from this. Not saying Bautista wouldn’t have beaten him anyway. He may well have. But it felt like a lot of people were quick to put the boot into Mix, calling him a fraud or a bum, but conveniently ignoring the fact that the circumstances weren’t great for his debut. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here. If he gets a full camp in and still looks dogshit next time, fair enough. Also, Bautista’s better than many want to give him credit for. Everyone decided to hate him overnight after the way the Aldo fight went but he’s not typically a boring fighter from what I remember and we saw a better performance from him here.

Kevin Holland got the finish over Vicente Luque but it was one of them fights where I just kind of shrugged and forgot about it. I’m just kind of over Holland at this point. He’s alright, shows flashes of real skill at times but on the whole he’s just so inconsistent I just can’t get up for his fights anymore. Doesn’t help that I’ve looked at Luque as pretty much a spent force ever since the brain haemorrhage a couple of years back. So a good win for Holland but I’m not sure how impressive it is at this point. Plus you know he’s probably gonna shit the bed next time out anyway so whatever.

Joshua Van continues to be a highlight on any card he appears. At a time when the roster and overall quality of the cards has rarely been bleaker, Van’s genuinely one of the few young prospects who stands out as worth keeping an eye on currently. He’s not perfect but he’s putting the work in, staying active and showing improvements. And he’s still only 23. Really bright future potentially if he can stay on track.

Just swarmed on Bruno Silva and overwhelmed him for the late finish. Silva’s tough but he was basically in survival mode for a lot of this. Van’s moved up to #10 in the Flyweight rankings now and he’s already reportedly got his next fight lined up at UFC 317, filling in for Manel Kape against Brandon Royval. That’s a massive opportunity for Van but also a huge step up in levels. Royval’s currently ranked #1 in the division. So if Van can win that one, he’s immediately in the thick of the title mix. Love Van and I get why he’s jumped at the chance but I can’t help feeling like he’s moving too quickly. We’ll see and hopefully I’m wrong but I could see a Tyson Griffin situation here. Griffin was one of the most exciting 155ers in the world in 2007 when the Lightweight division was revived and looked like a sure-fire future title contender. He had a bunch of barnburners then just fizzled out. Hopefully that doesn’t happen with Van. I’d expect Royval will probably beat him and, if he does, then it depends how Van responds to it. If he beats Royval though, there’s no going backwards. At that point they might just chuck him into a title fight, especially if Pantoja’s still champ with him running low on fresh challengers.

Azamat Murzakanov bashed up Brendson Ribeiro as expected. No surprises here. Really hope Murzakanov can secure a biggish fight next. He was meant to fight Johnny Walker here, which would’ve been a decent scalp for him. Walker pulled out and this Ribeiro fight really didn’t do much for Murzakanov, other than keeping him busy. He’s 36 as well so he needs to get things moving. Hopefully his next fight is against a name who actually shows up.

20 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

Prelim highlight other than the faceplant KO was Andres Gustafsson's debut. That guy is an animal, get him in there with some fellow sluggers and it's going to be chaos. Big fan.

Yeah, Andreas Gustafsson looked pretty good in his debut. I’m gonna hold off on whether I’m a fan or not though. Seeing a lot of stuff about his tattoos being a bit…dodgy.

Yeah. I’m no expert on these things but yeah. Iron crosses and shit all over him as well. Definitely getting that Nazi whiff off him. The UFC clearly don’t care about this stuff in 2025 though.

Probably the highlight of the prelims though was JooSang Yoo for me. Christ, what a KO. What a debut. What a Flair Flop. And in just 28 seconds!

Reminded me a lot of when Paul Daley starched Scott Smith all those years ago in Strikeforce. Quite a first impression for Yoo. Looking forward to seeing him again. Exciting addition to the Featherweight division.


Yeah, 316 was alright.

Gotta say though, I know I’m not the only one feeling this way and I know it’s pointless moaning about it because nothing’s gonna change. But this constant sucking off of Trump is really old now. I’d rather they just left politics out of it altogether ideally. But they’re pushing this shit on us more and more now and it’s rancid. It’s gone from him just walking out with Dana before the main card to now seemingly every fighter tonguing his arse out in their post-fight interview. You can’t escape or ignore it at all. Seeing Kayla Harrison sucking up to him and putting the belt on him and stuff was as cringe as it was disappointing.

Ergh. Obviously I’m not surprised so many fighters, especially Americans, are Trump lovers. I’m not naive or delusional about it. But why do they have to incessantly throat fuck us with it every chance they get? I don’t need to know your fucking politics. It’s got no relevance to MMA. There’s no need for it to be on pretty much every single bastard PPV now either. I was watching Kayla’s post-fight press conference and she said something like ‘I was coming out of the cage and Dana said ‘come on, you’ve gotta meet the President’ or something. So he’s actively pushing his fighters to lick Trump’s arse on the broadcasts as well. Not that she wouldn’t have pandered to him without that, but Dana actually pushing it on them like that just makes the whole thing feel even more gross. It was so refreshing when Charles Oliveira just walked past that whole little Trump, Musk, Dana group at MSG. He had to have known exactly what he was doing there and I loved it. Just can’t be arsed with it at all. Again, I know it’s pointless. Almost certain Trump’s gonna be back out there, front and centre with his big ugly orange gob, at UFC 317 in a few weeks. But man.

At a time when the roster is already low on stars, no new stars are being created, the cards overall across the year are weaker than ever, the absolute farce currently going on with Jones and Heavyweight, Rogan’s still sat out there like a stuffed dummy of himself with a soundboard fitted with the same five phrases and Dana seems checked out and disinterested unless you’re talking about Trump or Power Slap. Now on top of all that, the PPVs are basically a 3 hour Trump blowbang as well? I still love the high level fights and I highly doubt I’ll ever stop watching. But I’ve never been closer to just sacking it off as I am right now.

[Egg Shen]

Hadn't spotted those Gustaffson tattoo's, I hope they aint what we think they might be. Guys a tank.