Former UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley lost his title to Merab Dvalishvili after a five-round domination, leaving the former UFC star looking like an amateur. Dvalishvili's performance made O'Malley look flat, unhealthy, and lacking in high-level fight IQ, all things which have never been associated with the flashy striker before.
Before the loss, O'Malley had been compared to the UFC's biggest star, Conor McGregor. O'Malley even suggested he could surpass his star power. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case and a fellow former fighter even wondered if O'Malley could have fallen into the same curse that McGregor did when he reached the height of his success.
“O’Malley also has the Conor McGregor curse,” Alan Jouban said on an episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer podcast. “Where he is not the hammer, and he becomes the nail, and if that opponent starts to style on them, and when they’re not styling and they’re getting styled on, it defeats them.”
He continued, “He has similarities to Conor, great ones but he’s also got the Conor McGregor curse where you take away a star’s shine and you watch them just wither right there. He wasn’t up for the big show in this matchup because of that. Merab did everything right in the fight physically but mentally as well. He took that confidence away from O’Malley.”
McGregor hasn't won a fight since January 2020 and hasn't fought since July 2021. O'Malley suffered his first loss since he was defeated by Marlon "Chito" Vera in August 2020. O'Malley recently announced he'd be taking time off to have surgery.
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