Sean O’Malley is not impressed with the promotion of his fight against Merab Dvalishvili at #UFC 306:
“A little annoyed-ish about the promotion of the
‘the sphere, the sphere, the show’. I’m the one doing interviews not the sphere, let’s promote Sean vs Merab, The Suga Show,… pic.twitter.com/iYTbeehmiV— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) August 23, 2024
Sean O’Malley believes, as the defending champ in the main event, that he should be the focus of UFC 306 instead of the venue.
O’Malley (18-1) will defend his bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili (17-4) in the UFC 306 headliner, which goes down on Sept. 14 at The Sphere in Las Vegas. The event, which also marks the UFC’s yearly tribute to Mexican Independence Day, is being promoted as the most spectacular venue in combat sports history.
The UFC has also taken the step of partnering with Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the board of directors of the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) of Saudi Arabia, for the event that is also being called Riyadh Season Noche UFC. Alalshikh has also openly declared the event a competitor against Canelo Alvarez’s boxing match against Edgar Berlanga, which takes place in the same city on the same night. UFC head honcho Dana White also confirmed that the Sphere spectacle will be a one-time thing for the promotion. Both White and the UFC’s parent company TKO Group Holdings’ chief financial officer Andrew Schleimer have admitted that the card will burn a hole in the company’s pockets, which is expected to pay long-term dividends, if not immediate ones.
However, O’Malley doesn’t like his stardom getting overshadowed by the magnitude of the venue. “Sugar” is unhappy with the way the event is being billed as the Sphere card instead of his title defense against Dvalishvili. However, the bantamweight champ expects things to perhaps change with hardly three weeks to go before fight night.
“I’m very excited. Now that’s it’s like the last pay-per-view was last weekend. It’s always the next pay-per-view that’s being talked about. So now that that fight’s over, we got the Sphere coming up. A little annoyed-ish about the promotion of the Sphere, the show,” the 29-year-old said in an interview with Michael Bisping. “I’m the one doing the interviews, not the Sphere. Let’s promote Sean vs. Merab, the Sugar Show. I’m the one, let’s go baby. But it is what it is, the Sphere’s gonna be fuc*ing legendary, it’ll be epic, it’ll be cool. But yeah, I think these next few weeks, things are really going to start coming out.”
Undefeated since 2020, O’Malley knocked out Dvalishvili’s close friend Aljamain Sterling to win the title last year before defending it via a dominant unanimous decision against Marlon Vera this past March. Meanwhile, Dvalishvili most recently scored a unanimous decision over former champ Henry Cejudo in February to extend his winning streak to 10, the longest in the history of the division.
