Suga' in the Gas Tank

Sean O'Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili

Can Sean O’Malley prove his championship mettle against a worthy contender?

V1: Yan stifles O’Malley’s movement with a stomp to the knee. As O’Malley circles along the cage, Yan attacks with a series of left hooks that force O’Malley to shell up. Yan takes advantage of O’Malley’s high hands to drop on the legs and take him down.

If V1 was all we had to go by, I would say no. Wrestling is often a great equalizer in MMA. The less skilled man can often overcome the deficit with grit, pace, and the ability to hit one good takedown with control per round. Dvalishvili is the poster child of the first two, while opting to mat return and look for transitional offense, rather than sit on top. Given the potency of Dvalishvili’s grappling and transitional game, I see Sean O’Malley as having a rough road ahead at Noche UFC. What can he do to overcome the grappling deficit?

Disclaimer: The video clips included in this article are not owned by the author. They are included for educational purposes only to illustrate key moments in the fighter’s career and demonstrate aspects of mixed martial arts techniques and strategies. All rights to the video content belong to their respective owners.

Leg Kicking

The legs are an easy target for any striking sport where kicking is involved. The low kick has been meme’d to death in the modern MMA meta, but that is because it works. It is a safe weapon to use from the outside and is effective at hindering an opponent’s movement. Jose Aldo and Marlon Moraes, more powerful low kickers in the sport, had success in forcing Dvalishvili to deal with the weapon. As Dvalishvili is moving around the cage he opts to move backwards in a straight line when the opponent kicks (V2). Though he is a pressure heavy fighter, a low kick will take away this away and become a potent tool for his opponents.

The other reason the calf kick can be effective against Dvalishvili is his stance. He tends to hop around while quite side on, almost like a karateka, and blitz in with punching combinations. Before he darts into range, he gets very heavy on his lead foot and prepares his hands to punch. Its quite a tell, and his heavy lead leg allows for a more damaging low kick that can take him out of his stance (V3, V4).

Though effective, low-kicking is not reliable if it is the primary tool to damage Dvalishvili. While attritive damage should be a priority against The Machine with his endless gas tank, the weapon becomes too obvious too counter when not timed effectively. Dvalishvili is a gritty enough fighter where he can endure the damage to either continue his combinations (V4) or push through a takedown (V5) while the opponent is on one leg. This can be a great weapon for O’Malley, but it will have to be used sparingly, timing it for maximum damage between his feinting to catch him, rather than building his game around its utilization.

V2: Moraes slowly pushes Merab back with step-in and jab feints. He throws a lazy leg kick to check Merab’s reaction: move back out of range.

V3: Merab gets a low kick checked by Aldo in the center of the cage. Aldo lazily feints with his hands and spins Merab round with a hard leg kick of his own as Merab starts to advance.

V4: Moraes advances with a body straight, slipping outside of Merab’s return. As Merab commits to punching, he gets heavy on his front foot which prompts a leg kick from Moraes. Moraes leg kicks as he commits to jabbing again but Merab continues his combination to hit Moraes while he is on one leg.

V5: Moraes double jabs around Merab. Moraes throws the leg kick as Merab gets heavy on his lead leg to strike, but it was a feint, and Merab instead grabs the kicking leg and takes Moraes down.

Anti-Grappling

The question looming over this fight is that of Sean O’Malley’s grappling. He’s an accomplished grappler in his own right but has only faced one elite grappler in his time at the UFC. He could not have faced much of a stiffer test than Aljamain Sterling, but Dvalishvili is a foil to the former champion. Where Sterling would kick from the outside and shoot opportunistic takedowns to take the back, Dvalishvili is a forward moving freight train who punches in bunches and looks for transitional offense between his mat returns.

The first layer of defense, whether it be striking or grappling, is footwork. Though Sean O’Malley has his own problems with crossing his feet and moving more than required, his understanding of cage positioning is sound.

The main problem striking-oriented fighters find against grapplers is their striking is neutered by the threat of the takedown, and any overcommitment will result in them being taken to the mat. Takedowns are most effective in straight lines and those who simply move backwards to avoid them can eventually be ran to the fence, a favorite tactic of Dvalishvili. Rather than overcommit or move back, incorporating lateral movement into striking can make takedowns much more difficult. In V6, we see O’Malley start a sequence by circling around Vera with the jab. Pressuring with lateral movement forces the opponent to react and face you less you gain a dominant angle to strike from. O’Malley follows up by stepping through on a rear straight. Against Dvalishvili, this might just give him the leg for free to snatch a single. As a macro concept however, we see him dart out of range outside Vera’s lead side. I can see him building consistent offensive maneuvers if he simply darts in and out on angles (V7). The longer O’Malley can continue to attack and defend while pivoting, stepping out, and moving laterally, the less Dvalishvili will touch his legs.

V6: Sean O’Malley shows a step-in feint after crowding Vera’s lead hand. He feints a step in again and follows up with a jab while pivoting around Vera. O’Malley switches stances while crowding Vera’s lead hand, and throws a shifting rear hand, leaving it on Vera’s face to frame and dart outside Vera’s lead side on an angle.

V7: O’Malley retreats to his right while switching stances as Chito kicks the closed (formerly open) side. As Chito comes into range, O’Malley intercepts him with a right hand and backs out of range to his left to avoid Vera’s return punches.

Salient footwork is the first layer of takedown defense but Dvalishvili is a persistent man. In a fight that he probably won, Jose Aldo’s primary form of offense was the intercepting knee to catch Dvalishvili as he overcommitted on strikes or attempted a takedown (V8). This slowed his attempts at taking Aldo down and the attack was rarely punished by grabbing onto the striking knee. The strike is generally too quick to counter in this way, and Dvalishvili opted to swing over the top instead to little effect. O’Malley almost took Vera’s head off with a knee himself and can leverage his range advantage by stabbing the head and body when he decides to step into range (V9).

V8: Aldo calmly walks into range and stabs Merab’s body with an intercepting knee as he commits to a right hand over the top.

V9: Sean O’Malley forces Chito to duck and cover with a step in jab feint, and counters this reaction with a gigantic knee to the dome.

The threat of the knee and footwork can dampen Dvalishvili’s grappling but O’Malley will find him on his hips at one point in the fight. Suga’s main display of anti-grappling was against Petr Yan. This showing worried me against such a potent back-taker in Sterling, but is much more suited to a mat return specialist like Dvalishvili. Above any consideration O’Malley is always looking to control the wrists (V10, V11). O’Malley’s focus on the wrist takes away the back body lock and his cheeky arm drag is perfect to reverse position along the cage.

V10: As O’Malley stands up along the fence, he gets wrist control on Yan’s punching hand. Once he obtains a 2-on-1, he works on an arm drag to turn and face Yan. Though there is no route to the back, he pushes Yan off while he throws a knee to get off from the cage.

V11: Sean O’Malley maintains a frame on Yan’s hip as he throws punches and stands up with this frame to keep space between their hips. O’Malley grabbed the wrist with the other hand to stand up, and transitions his frame into an arm drag to turn Yan around and gain a dominant position with Yan’s back against the cage.

The grappling might catch up with him as the fight enters the championship rounds, but between what we’ve seen against Yan and Sterling, I am more than confident in his ability to survive the early rounds.

Dual-Pronged Feinting

The magic of O’Malley’s game is in his feinting. His step in feints and newly polished jab are the perfect weapons to still opponents and open them to his power punches. To his benefit, Dvalishvili does not typically handle feinting well. The pressure monster has easily been backed up by competent feints in the past.

The first step to winning the striking against Dvalishvili is to dissuade the pressure. Whenever Aldo found himself against the fence, he focused on feinting to the head and throwing to the body (V12, V13). The threat was significant enough to force Dvalishvili backwards. Though not the same style, we saw O’Malley default to his stepping and darting feints when he was nearing the cage against Sterling, who had the same response as his teammate (V14).

Once Dvalishvili is made too uncomfortable to move forwards, continued feints will push him backwards (V15). O’Malley found success pressuring with the same playbook of step in feints and straights to the body against Sterling (V16, V17). Paired with his lateral movement, O’Malley can create a situation where Dvalishvili is pressured to the fence without a reliable safety valve in a takedown. O’Malley can pressure, hit, and move so the grappling threat cannot materialize.

V12: With his back along the cage, Aldo feints a double jab and pivots around a left hook feint to back Merab up and put himself back into the center territory, rather than the peripheral.

V13: Aldo feints a knee / teep which moves Merab back, and follows up with a jab to the body which continues to move him straight backwards.

V14: O’Malley back steps as Sterling steps through his stance and feints direction changes both ways, before shifting through his stance to throw an additional shifting rear hand as he nears the cage.

V15: Aldo moves forward with multiple jab feints to which Merab responds by moving backwards on a straight line.

V16: Sterling moves back in response to a front kick to the body, and O’Malley solidifies his pressure with a rear hand to the body and twitchy step-in feints.

V17: O’Malley steps in to feint with the jab and the body jab to force Chito backwards and circling.

When Dvalishvili cannot get his pressure or takedowns going, he tends to become desperate (V18). He begins throwing anything that might stick, which often lead to unforced errors (V19, V20). Again, this is not foreign territory for the champion. His title winning performance was predicated on feinting and lateral movement to prevent the takedown, staying slightly ahead on strikes, and making Sterling uncomfortable enough to rush in for an easy counter shot (V21). Dvalishvili is not the same fighter as his teammate, and it I find it hard to imagine that he will get sparked out with the first good counter shot, but he has the potential to be played the same way.

V18: Aldo’s knee feints keep Merab from rushing in, and force him to throw a spinning back kick.

V19: Moraes keeps an active lead hand while changing levels, which keeps Merab from storming into range. When Merab does come into range, he overcommits with a 1-2 that brings his back foot off the floor. Moraes attempts to cross counter the jab, but almost knocks Merab out with a left hook as right hand returns to position.

V20: As Merab is dazed following a hard left hook (V19)

V21: O’Malley sticks in a hard front kick to the body, which coerces Sterling into an overcommitted rear hand that is easily countered by O’Malley’s own rear hand over the top.

Unlike many in the “MMA-Twitter verse” I am quite a fan of Merab Dvalishvili. His style is endlessly exciting and I can’t recall a boring performance of his save Aldo. I’ve always been endeared to shorter, gritty, pressure cardio machines who can get it done with pace. Perhaps I like to see myself in them, and find it fun to emulate, to drown the opponent.

I can only see this fight as a one-sided domination on either side. Dvalishvili’s path to victory is straight forward, but difficult in the face of O’Malley’s recent form and improvements. Though O’Malley could have success countering an over zealous charge, he needs to dead the Georgian or keep him uncomfortable for at least 15 minutes, which only becomes more difficult as the fight drags on.

Despite my love for Dvalishvili’s style, I cannot deny that Sean O’Malley’s impeccable aesthetic choices have made him the de-facto fighter of the Movement Martials. Wether the Irish-American or the Georgian expat will find themselves holding the strap, in Las Vegas, in celebration of Mexican Independence day, who’s to say?