{"id":6411,"date":"2025-06-08T22:34:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T17:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=6411"},"modified":"2025-06-08T22:34:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T17:34:40","slug":"with-trump-in-attendance-merab-dvalishvili-defeats-sean-omalley-at-ufc-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=6411","title":{"rendered":"With Trump in attendance, Merab Dvalishvili defeats Sean O’Malley at UFC 316"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MMA fighter Merab Dvalishvili effortlessly defeated Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 316 on Saturday night in Newark, NJ, securing a third-round modified choke in their rematch to retain the bantamweight championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With President Donald Trump watching from cageside, Dvalishvili (20-4) emphatically displayed his wrestling base to tire out the former champion and make an argument as one of the sport’s best bantamweights, perhaps of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dvalishvili, who won at 4:42 of the third round for his 13th consecutive victory, said he would welcome his next title defence against Cory Sandhagen (18-5), a winner of four of his last five fights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You’re the man, let’s go,” Dvalishvili said, indicating that he would be interested in fighting Sandhagen next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O’Malley (18-3) fell to Dvalishvili last September by unanimous decision, relinquishing his title. O’Malley confirmed the loss was a minor setback, reassuring of a steady return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“100%, thank you guys for coming out,” O’Malley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women’s bantamweight title changed hands in the co-main event, as Kayla Harrison submitted Julianna Pena with a second-round kimura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"US
US President Donald Trump attends the UFC 316 event at the Prudential Centre in Newark, New Jersey, US on June 8, 2025. \u2014 Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Harrison and Pena embraced in the Octagon afterwards, showing utmost class for one another after Harrison controlled every aspect of the fight. Harrison said during her post-fight interview that her weight cut was so draining on Thursday night that she “wanted to quit,” but it would have been a mistake in her eyes, given that most fighters in MMA don’t win a UFC title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrison (19-1) called out Pena’s (13-6) former rival, Amanda Nunes. Nunes (23-5) is a former two-division champion who retired in 2023. As time passed, she teased a comeback. It now seems inevitable, as Harrison and Nunes posed for a face-off and talked of a bout later this year as the Prudential Center crowd beamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middleweight Joe Pyfer made good on his UFC return, defeating TUF alumnus Kelvin Gastelum by unanimous decision 29-28, 29-27, 30-27. Pyfer (14-3) has won his last two outings, whereas Gastelum (19-10 MMA) is in the midst of a slump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soon-to-be UFC Hall of Fame “Fight Wing” inductee and ex-interim middleweight title challenger, Gastelum has yet to win back-to-back fights in six years. His last win came last June, defeating Daniel Rodriguez (19-5) by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bantamweight Mario Bautista shut down the UFC debut of Patchy Mix, winning a one-sided unanimous decision 29-28, 30-27-30-27. The fight primarily stayed on the feet, as Bautista (16-2) has won eight in a row while Mix (20-2) was presumed to be a possible title challenger upon entry into the promotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MMA fighter Merab Dvalishvili effortlessly defeated Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 316 on Saturday night in Newark, NJ, securing a third-round modified choke in their rematch to retain the bantamweight championship. With President Donald Trump watching from cageside, Dvalishvili (20-4) emphatically displayed his wrestling base to tire out the former champion and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6413,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411\/revisions\/6413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}