Sean O’Malley is scheduled to undergo surgery after losing the UFC bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306, which he said will lead to an extended break from fighting.
O’Malley tore the labrum in his left hip about 10 weeks ago and has a procedure scheduled for Oct. 3, he told internet personality Adin Ross. O’Malley, who suffered his first defeat in over four years against Dvalishvili this past weekend at Sphere in Las Vegas, said it’ll be “nine months, 10 months, maybe a year” before he steps back into the Octagon.
“It’s gonna be a while,” O’Malley said on his “TimboSugarShow” podcast. “People are gonna have to watch the UFC without the Suga Show for a little bit.”
O’Malley, who fought twice in 2024 and once in 2023, said recovery from the surgery will take about two months.
“It’s gonna feel good to take a legit break to get fully healthy,” O’Malley said. “You always have little f—–g whatevers. It’s gonna be nice to take a legit, full-on break without something like, ‘Oh, this is next, this is next.’
“Right after the (Aljamain Sterling) fight, I knew I had the (Marlon) ‘Chito’ (Vera) fight. Right after the ‘Chito’ fight, I knew I had the Merab fight. And now after this fight, I don’t have anything. Nothing scheduled. … It’s like, no one’s next. I gotta get healthy, and that’s it. I’m gonna actually heal up from injuries and take my time and come back.”
O’Malley, who came into his second 135-pound title defense riding a seven-fight unbeaten streak, said he has zero excuses for his one-sided decision loss in which Dvalishvili took him down six times and controlled him on the ground for over 10 minutes. UFC CEO Dana White said after the fight he thought O’Malley “looked flat,” but the former champion insisted he felt good in the cage.
“My mom, too, she was like, ‘You just weren’t the same. What was wrong?'” O’Malley said. “I’m like, ‘Nothing.’ I just got beat.”
O’Malley added that he thinks Dvalishvili was stronger but not necessarily more skilled than him, and he regrets not trying harder to get back to his feet.
“I should’ve used more energy to get up and break away instead of thinking, ‘F–k, I need to do this again next round if he takes me down.’ I needed to just go,” O’Malley said. “That’s probably what I’ve taken away from (the fight) without watching it. I shouldn’t have tried to conserve my energy for the later rounds. I should’ve just got up and got away.”
O’Malley’s best moment of the fight came late in the fifth round when he hurt Dvalishvili to the body with a front kick. He said the glimmer of hope at the end makes the loss sting the most.
“I know I can beat him, which is, I guess, what sucks,” O’Malley said. “He beat me on the day that matters – that’s the one that matters.”
