Topic: The UFC Info and Prediction Thread - page 17. (Read 96871 times)

It's gonna be Umar Nurmagomedov next for Merab for sure.  But if you guys noticed at Merab's post fight interview he was kinda hesitant to say anything...  What he said was he wants to talk to Dana White and the match makers.  What that means is he wants to get paid more money to fight the tough Dagestanian bro.  I mean he should get paid more.  And I hope the UFC doesn't make it hard for Merab.  I wanna see that match up. 

As for O'Malley, the ideal match up is to go for Sandhagen next and win specatcularly via KO to get the next title shot against whoever wins between Nurmagomedov and Dvalshvili.  But man if it's Nurmy, 135 is done for while.  He'll be champ for a looong time.

I already feel like if Umar Nurmagomedov fight Merab, the fight will take place in UAE. Have you also noticed, that Khabib and all his team fight only or mostly in UAE ? Same goes with Chimaev also. How would you describe such coincidence? In some Russian combat related forums, people joke about Nurmagomedov clan fight only in UEA because sheikhs helps them to cheat with medicine.

Sandagen vs Omalley most probably and then Omalley to rematch Merab for the belt once again. This is very possible unless Dana is going to allow Umar vs Merab first, it will kill the Omalley hype as Omalley is demoralized after Merab just toying him in the cage.

They were already talking about it. https://x.com/aaronbronsteter/status/1835201267892629857
Umar Nurmagomedov -200
Merab Dvalishvili +170


Grasso vs Shev should have been over in the first round if Shev just got a little more time for rarenaked choke. 

Ah...  Yeah, good call on that match up.  But sad to say to O'Malley supporters that Sandhagen is pretty good, with unlimited cardio, high volume and has never been KO'd in a match.  I really hope he comes in as the underdog if matched up vs O'Malley.

And he went toe to toe against Umar Nurmagomedov and went the distance in a 5 rounder.  I don't think O'Malley could last 5 rounds against the tough Dagestanian bro tbh.


Bet more. 

Everyone was expecting that he would lose against Petr Yan, against Henry Cejudo but he won. Then everyone was expecting that Sean O'Malley would eat Merab but Merab made him look normal, as he said himself. I don't watch UFC but I watched some of Sean O'Malley's fights and he is a really great fighter but in front of Merab, he was nothing. In front of Merab, Yan was absolutely nothing and neither was Cejudo. Everyone is nothing in front of Merab Dvalishvili and Ilia Topuria, that's the power of Georgians.

A friend of mine is Merab's "brother", he trains since his childhood, Merab trains him and soon we will see a new Georgian fighter on UFC Octagon.

It is you, me and the rest of the topic members understand that fights were great. But for an average Joe, if a fighter wasnt knocked out, then the fight is bad and boring I find it strange to see that nobody started a discussion about Dvalishvili kissing O'Malley back And that Dvalishvili warning on the first seconds of the fight. Anyway, I can say that I like the event and venue. First I had doubt about the card, in general everything went well. New record for number of wins in bantamweight by Dvalishvili, and Lopes continues his way to title belt.

Sean O'Malley got lot of pressure from Merab Dvalishvili with quite few takedown attempts from each round, almost all of which Dvalishvili kept cornering O'Malley to fight on the canvas and that was Dvalishvili advantage that could make him get more points.
Indeed, O'Malley had some points from the punches and kicks he gave to Dvalishvili but in this fight even though Dvalishvili was seen getting some punches and kicks he still showed that he has strong body and doesn't seem to be tired.
If O'Malley didn't get some takedowns and could keep his distance maybe the advantage would still be obtained by O'Malley and we could see him defend his title again, it just that it turns out that Dvalishvili is not weak fighter and he really showed how to fight using intelligence.
I made O'Malley the favorite but he failed, hopefully Dana will give rematch to both of them later and fight for the title again.

I love when underdogs win the fights, and Dvalishvili deserved to win this time and bring the belt home in Georgia.
Dvalishvili is having a great run, wining last four fights and I expect to se rematch against OMalley soon.
I think UFC and Dana White dont like this outcome very much

I've watched the whole fight, but I'm not that good at analyzing. Anyway, from what I've seen, O'Malley doesn't want those takedowns that's why he's hesitating to throw some punches and chooses to defend himself. It's my first time to see Merab fighting, and what I say is that, he's moving like crazy the whole fight. That confuses his opponent and in this case, it's O'Malley. We know that takedown = points and Merab if I'm not mistaken took him down more than 5 times the whole fight.

The co-main event is where I felt sleepy TBH. Take down in the first minute of the fight then that will be the case the whole round. The whole venue is just cool to see especially those holograms out there, but the whole line-up? Hmmm.

It's the average cabrons that are there watching though. But yes this is not a very satisfying event, I was expecting fighters to show their best, and I see Omalley is not finding ways to throw combos. He wants to stay in the middle when he should be chasing Merab. And when Merab catches him, he sits there receiving all the knees lol The whole main cards are won by decision.

We can see in the 5th round, Merab looks up the the clock and just killing time. He knows he is winning.

More volume form O'Malley, lots of combos, nicely timed counters, utilising reach advantage. I dunno.


I was talking about the next opponent for O'Malley, not for Dvalishvili.
Nurmagomedov is probably next for the title shot, but UFC will be desperate for Sean's rebound from a loss to keep his hype going, and Sandhagen looks like a good option.

^  What did everybody expect?  Dvalishvili is a cardio machine with a cast iron chin, volume, and with relentless TD attempts...

Wtf Sandhagen?  He just lost to Umar Nurmagomedov.  Nurmagomedov is next for sure.  That'll be a great match imho.  


Not sure how it did vs Canelo's event if we're talking about money but I'm damn pretty sure that UFC 306 turned out to be a waaay better event than Canelo's event.  Lol.  Like way waaay better.  I hope we see the UFC go back to the Sphere for some of its bigger events.

At first I was kinda disappointed as it kinds sucked.  You could see the beams in the arena, the lights were too bright and where was the visuals?  But then the main card started...  Everybody was blown away.  It was sooo good.

And yeah, some of the matches ended up via decision but man, some of them were great fights...  Ribovics vs Zellhuber FOTN imho.

UFC 306:  Match Results

Merab Dvalishvili def Sean O'Malley  UD
Valentina Shevchenko def Alexa Grasso  UD
Diego Lopes def Brian Ortega  UD
Esteban Ribovics def Daniel Zellhuber  SD
Ronaldo Rodríguez def Ode Osbourne  UD
Norma Dumont def Irene Aldana   Decision  UD
Ignacio Bahamondes def Manuel Torres  TKO R1
Ketlen Souza def Yazmin Jauregui  SUB R1
Joshua Van def Edgar Chairez  UD
Raul Rosas Jr. def Aori Qileng  UD

UFC 306:  Post Fight Press Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDNl6M0WeVQ

^  Will watch that later...

Edit:  Typos

I haven't seen the whole event and only woke up to see the results and the main event's highlights.
I have to say, I did not expect Merab to be this dominating, I honestly thought Sean was the favourite, but he just didn't deliver with his striking.
See the stats in the fight card, O/Malley only landed 49 strikes, while Merab 214, that's over 4 times more. I expected to see the opposite.



This is bad for the UFC, as O'Malley was very marketable, but he lost in such a fashion that he doesn't really deserve a rematch or another title shot anytime soon.
He had a lot of options, including a potential super-fight with Topuria (if he was to defeat Holloway) but this is probably off the table right now.
I sense we might see him fighting Sandhagen next, but maybe moving up to the featherweight is not a bad idea.

So the UFC 306 has ended. Before we start discussing the fights more detailed, look on the performance in general. Only 1 tko and 1 submission in whole event. Some posts above it was said that it is business vs business between ufc and boxing. So how and average event viewer would evaluate this event, if there would be almost no finishes? For me: I have seen good and excellent fights yesterday. Average Joe probably got unsatisfied, especially with such ticket cost.

Almost time for things to start heating up. Hope everyone has a safe and fun evening of UFC watching for this historic event. Wish there was a bigger headliner but I’m rolling with Suga for an O’Malley smackdown. I hope tonight has some highlights to remember and the Sphere isn’t the only star of the evening.

This was expected to happen after he lost last fight against Dricus Du Plessis, and I think Adesanya era is over.
Other fighters figured out his style and found a way to beat him and make him look weak in octagon.
UFC and Dana White are going to try to milk him for money until the end with more fights against weaker fighters, but I dont think he is going to be UFC champion again.

^  Not sure about all the guys from Mexico winning their respective matches.  There are some sketchy ones in there...  Like Torres vs Bahamondes, Rodriguez vs Osbourne, Ortega vs Lopes and even Grasso vs Shev.  But yeah, with the Rodriguez vs Osbourne one I feel like if Osbourne doesn't get KO'd and weathers at the first couple of rounds, Rodriguez could gas out and get finished.  The pick is Rodriguez for my degen parlay but yeah sketchy...

Anyway here are the weigh results and replays.  Was kinda disappointed that the ceremonial weigh ins was outside not inside.  Can't wait to see what it looks like from the inside.

Champ Sean O’Malley (135) vs Merab Dvalishvili (134)
Champ Alexa Grasso (124) vs Valentina Shevchenko (125)
Diego Lopes (146) vs Brian Ortega (146)
Esteban Ribovics (155) vs Daniel Zellhuber (155)
Ode Osbourne (125) vs Ronaldo Rodriguez (125)
Irene Aldana (136) vs Norma Dumont (136)
Ignacio Bahamondes (156) vs Manuel Torres (156)
Yazmin Jauregui (115) vs Ketlen Souza (115)
Edgar Chairez (125.5) vs Joshua Van (125.5)
Aori Qileng (136) vs Raul Rosas Jr. (136)

UFC 306:  Official Weigh In Replay
https://youtu.be/y4OYYe4Qtnk?si=pBfLjxyEX3FfgY7F

UFC 306:  Ceremonial Weigh In Face Off
https://youtu.be/qf5cetQqkbw?si=G_NrZYjVwaUruoaz

I very much disagree if everyone has assumed that this is a UFC vs. boxing war. This is a business vs. business war and the winner might be the promotion of Al Haymon on Canelo's fight if the earnings of each on tickets and payperviews are compared hehehe. The UFC can also be victorious because of the Sphere. The fans might be very excited on this and how this will appear inside and on the screen. However, if Canelo's opponent is David Benavidez, I am quite certain the UFC will lose on business vs. business for the Mexican Independence day weekend.

I predict all of the Mexicans in UFC 306 will be victorious. According to uncle Dana, this is his love letter for the people of Mexico.

I just watched the replay of the pre fight press conference.  It was mostly just ok.  Was expecting more but animosity can't be forced if the fighters are not in the mood.  There was one with that lazy boy guy and Osbourne tho.  Lol.  I'm betting on the lazy boy guy if I'm betting that match but Osbourne is a live dog imho.

UFC 306:  Pre Fight Press Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUU76YAYIu8

Live weigh ins in 4 hours and ceremonial weigh ins in 14 hours...  Enjoy.

UFC 306:  Live Weigh In
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLwqK_Jf2io

UFC 306:  Ceremonial Weigh In
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEk514mAqNg

The 'criteria' is actually a voting panel composed of MMA journos from different networks, publications, channels or whatever and evaluate the ranking based on I don't know what they're looking at.    So yeah...  If people are gonna blame the UFC again if their favorite fighter didn't make the cut, just stop.  Lol.  Blame the journos.  It's the reason why Dana White is all red whenever he argues with the journos that Jon Jones is his P4P top 1 in press conferences.  It's hilarious...

Here's a vid you guys might like.

UFC 306:  Prediction and Picks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls6zeVFW5aE

Enjoy...