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.
Dvalishvili came to Georgia two days ago, I was there in the meeting and saw him in real life. Dvalishvili said that he doesn't want to fight Nurmagomedov because it's not fair for Umar to fight Merab, he has to deserve to fight Merab. Merab had to fight people like Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo to fight for belt against Shean O'Malley and they are making it very easy for Umar Nurmagomedov, which Merab finds very unfair.
Dvalishvili received 365,000 USD from the local government and he donated 100% of it to the development of MMA in Georgia. He is a very good guy.
Meh... Don't think so because if Dana White really hated him he wouldn't have been given the opportunity to fight O'Malley in what was to be a historic event. He'll prolly say some of the fighters in roster are knuckle heads, but to really hate? Nah. It's all business with him. But then again if you try to do bad business with the UFC, he'll hate you and you're out. Mokaev looks like he had a taste of Dana White's hate. The guy won all his matches and still got him out of there.
As for Merab, pretty sure personally and behind the scenes Dana White could respect Merab's decision not to fight Sterling. I mean outside of business, who couldn't?
Live in 11 hours or so...
UFC 307: Pre Fight Press Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZbMz_2hBGY