The bantamweight title changed hands at UFC 306 last September.
Merab Dvalishvili dethroned Sean O’Malley at The Sphere in Las Vegas to capture the 135-pound championship. The two will rematch in the UFC 316 main event on June 7 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Following their first fight, O’Malley went into surgery while Dvalishvili defended his title for the first time. O’Malley hasn’t fought since the UFC 306 loss, and Dvalishvili’s coach, John Wood, doesn’t think O’Malley deserves an immediate rematch.
“I believe, first and foremost, I’ll say it time and time again, the UFC knows what they’re doing. They are way smarter than any of us when it comes to the business of it, so I never knock the on who deserves, or who should, who should this,” Wood said during an interview with Submission Radio.
“When it comes to making those decisions, they make the best decisions. Sometimes it’s not the decisions we want as fans, or fighters and coaches and teams, but it is what it is,” Wood continued.
“Do I personally think he should have had to fought somebody else? Yes. I do in the realm of the rankings a who’s there. I think it would have been a bigger buildup.”
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While Wood would have liked for O’Malley to fight his way back to a title bout, he also recognizes the star power of the former titleholder.
“O’Malley has a huge fanbase, though,” Wood said. “He has star power. I don’t know how much that plays into this fight anymore. But I would have liked to have seen him maybe fight [Petr] Yan again and had to fight a true contender or something to get back to the title. But again, that’s not our decision.
“My personal opinion, unless you’ve defended that belt multiple times and you’ve become a guy like [Valentina] Shevchenko, [Zhang] Weili, or even [Alex] Pereira, or [Israel] Adesanya. These guys that defended those belts, like Jon Jones. If you lose that belt, I believe you’ve been at the top for so long that maybe it was an off night and you have the chance to get that belt back,” Dvalishvili’s coach continued.
“That’s my opinion. Getting those instant rematches are for somebody who has defended multiple, multiple times and is basically a legend in the sport. I don’t think that’s the case here.”
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