How Do You Get Up For A Rematch After Dominating? Merab’s Coach Breaks Down Mental Edge Vs. O’Malley

If at first you succeed, try to do it better.

That’s the mentality Merab Dvalishvili and his coach, John Wood, are carrying into UFC 316 when ‘The Machine’ runs it back with Sean O’Malley in a main event rematch that nobody asked for because Dvalishvili was so ridiculously dominant the first time around.

So how do you motivate yourself to go out there and beat someone up that you already embarrassed for 25 minutes?

“For Merab, the flip side is he beat O’Malley pretty dominantly,” Wood said in interview with MMA Fighting. “It was not a close fight. I think you could maybe argue O’Malley won one round maybe. And that’s an argument. So, the other side is like when you’ve beaten a guy so dominantly, like how do you get up for that again, right? And it’s not like it was three years ago. It was, you know, less than a year ago.

“The motivation is to go out there and finish Sean. And if that doesn’t happen, like I said, it’s not for lack of trying. It’s not for lack of—Sean should be a changed man after this fight if he goes five rounds, you know? So, that’s where I think Merab’s head is at. That’s where I think the motivation for this fight is going to lie: to do these things better than we did before. And that’s—Merab lives for that.”

Sean O’Malley has something to prove against Merab Dvalishvili

Of course, it’s a different situation entirely for O’Malley.

After getting his ass handed to him by Dvalishvili at UFC 306 in September, things can only improve for the former bantamweight champion, right? Perhaps, buts oddsmakers aren’t exactly convinced that ‘Sugar’ will fare any better the second time around.

Currently, ‘The Machine’ is favored 3-to-1 to retain his title in the sequel scrap while O’Malley is a +225 underdog.