Former UFC champion Sean O’Malley has made a big effort to cut out all distractions as he prepares to rematch Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 316 on June 7th.
Sean O’Malley lost his UFC bantamweight title at UFC 306 in September 2024, losing the fight via unanimous decision against Dvalishvili.
The fight had plenty of bad blood during the build-up, and many fans expected O’Malley to dispatch Dvalishvili as he had done everyone else before him.
The pair are now squaring off for a second time in what has been called a ‘make or break’ fight between O’Malley and Dvalishvili. The former, in which, has been preparing in a rather unorthodox fashion.
Sean O’Malley creates a real UFC fight atmosphere in his gym
In one of his most recent vlogs on his YouTube channel, O’Malley showcased some footage of what was the last sparring session of his training camp.
It was no regular sparring session, however. He decided to create the atmosphere of a real UFC fight in his gym to help mentally prepare.
In the video, he walks from one side of his gym to the other, mimicking the walk he would take backstage just before he walks out in front of thousands of fans.
From the dimmed lights to the walkout song, he turned his gym into his arena to emulate what he will face on fight night at UFC 316.
He then goes into hard sparring with a very clear wrestling-heavy focus, based on his opponent’s strengths.
He also highlighted that he was not able to spar correctly for the first fight.
“Sparring last camp was not ideal, to fight against someone like Merab, you really want to be able to do certain things.”
“So sparring this camp, I haven’t been limited in what I have been able to do. It has been a night and day difference from this camp to the last camp.”
O’Malley blames injuries and distractions for his last loss
During the UFC 316 media day, O’Malley shared that he believed he had too many distractions going into the first fight, and he did not want to make the same mistake twice.
O’Malley said: “I catch myself driving, kind of surfing Instagram. I catch myself doing stuff like that, playing with my daughter, surfing X. Like ‘What am I doing here?’ I feel like limiting those distractions, I’m more present with the family, with training, with friends, just in general.”
He also highlighted that injuries prevented him from training how he wanted to for the first fight.
O’Malley’s coach, Tim Welch, described the issue they have faced when it comes to grappling in training.
“There have been multiple fight camps where we are sparring with the guy, and as soon as the guy grabs you [O’Malley], we have to stop it.
“Now that we have got the surgery done, we have gone back to hard sparring.”
O’Malley has his chance at redemption when he fights at UFC 316, and we will be able to see if the adjustments he has made to his training will make any difference to his performance.