No. 4-ranked UFC bantamweight Cory Sandhagen is campaigning for a fight with former divisional king Sean O'Malley after the result of Noche UFC 306. 'Sugar' was thoroughly defeated by Merab Dvalishvili, who won the fight in two of the three judges' scorecards, making him the new champion.
In a recent video uploaded to Sandhagen's YouTube, 'The Sandman' had some good points on why he and O'Malley should be booked next. He also mentioned another UFC bantamweight whom he claimed to have declined a fight with him.
Sandhagen said:
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"You guys know that this [Sandhagen vs. O'Malley] has been a fight that's been in the works for a really long time...Back me up on that stuff. Me and O'Malley got next. Figgy [Deiveson Figueiredo] turned down a fight against me in September, which is just kind of whack because I thought that Figgy was a little bit more about that life than that. I'm kind of actually hurt that Figgy doesn't want to fight me in December. Maybe he wants to take easier fights. Don't know what the dude's plan in."
Check out Cory Sandhagen's comments below (0:46):
Cory Sandhagen provides thorough breakdown of how Merab Dvalishvili defeated Sean O'Malley
Further into the video, 'The Sandman' gave a thorough breakdown of what Merab Dvalishvili did right in his dismantling of the untouchable 'Sugar' Sean O'Malley. He broke it down into different parts, from striking to grappling to overall octagon generalship.
On the striking aspect of the match, Cory Sandhagen said (2:23):
"A lot of O'Malley's difficulty in being able to find Merab outside of the shot is that Merab does, I don't know if he does it on purpose or it's just a part of the way that he moves, but he's so jittery in the way that he does things. When he throws things, at least in this fight, he didn't pop up a lot. He stayed really jittery. When he did go to do things, he made sure that his head was moving while he was attacking. It was really, like, smart way of doing things for Merab and just stylistically, it gave O'Malley definitely a ton of headaches."
Watch the rest of the video to see Sandhagen's entire breakdown of the main event of Noche UFC 306.