Merab Dvalishvili submitted Sean O’Malley at UFC 316 to retain his bantamweight title.
Dvalishvili stopped the struggle with a guillotine choke at 4 minutes and 42 seconds of spherical quantity three.
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O’Malley confirmed indicators of holding ‘The Machine’ at bay, however Dvalishvili displayed his elite stage as soon as once more to place his identify within the MMA historical past books perpetually.
Dvalishvili has now etched his identify within the UFC report books, having prolonged his unbeaten run to 13 wins in a row.
He’s now alongside UFC legends like Jon Jones, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Georges St-Pierre, Max Holloway and Demetrious Johnson on the record of fighters with the longest undefeated streaks within the promotion.
Islam Makhachev and Kamaru Usman are simply forward of Dvalishvili on 15 wins, with Anderson Silva out alone with the longest excellent streak in UFC historical past with 16 consecutive wins.
Dvalishvili‘s win was his first profession victory by choke, and solely his second victory by submission.
After the struggle, UFC commentator Joe Rogan described Dvalishvili’s efficiency as ‘freakish,’ and stated he’s the best bantamweight of all time.
Dvalishvili dethroned O’Malley of the bantamweight strap at UFC 306 in September, earlier than defending the strap towards Umar Nurmagomedov 4 months later.
The victory over O’Malley was his third defence of the title and he’ll now try and carry on smashing information towards No. 4 ranked UFC bantamweight Cory Sandhagen.
O’Malley opened up the struggle with a spinning again kick as he seemed to press Dvalishvili from the off.
Nonetheless, Dvalishvili rapidly switched the momentum and launched into his traditional preventing fashion of continuous relentless strain.
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Dvalishvili tried to pull O’Malley to the canvas for the primary time, however ‘Suga’ acquired straight again up.
After an impressibe begin to the spherical, O’Malley finally discovered himself on his again, and Dvalishvili entered spherical two within the lead.
Within the second, Dvalishvili landed some good early combos, exhibiting his ever bettering putting recreation.
He tried to get O’Malley down, however ‘Suga’ confirmed great defensive work as Dvalishvili had been profitable in simply considered one of his opening 5 takedowns as we entered spherical three.
Issues began to maneuver within the champion’s favour when he was profitable in taking O’Mallet to the mat simply 30 seconds into the third stanza.
Dvalishvili stayed in full guard, and O’Malley almost discovered his toes with 90 seconds to go, however the former secured takedown quantity 4 and we have been in the identical place once more.
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The champion then noticed a gap and jumped on O’Malley’s neck earlier than locking in a good choke and forcing his American opponent to submit.