Sean O’Malley Miffed at UFC 306 Venue Getting Top Billing

Sean
O’Malley believes, as the defending champ in the main event,
that he should be the focus of
UFC 306 instead of the venue.

O’Malley (18-1) will defend his bantamweight title against Merab
Dvalishvili (17-4) in the UFC 306 headliner, which goes down on
Sept. 14 at The Sphere in Las Vegas. The event, which also marks
the UFC’s yearly tribute to Mexican Independence Day, is being
promoted as the most spectacular venue in combat sports
history.

The UFC has also taken the step of partnering with Turki Alalshikh,
chairman of the board of directors of the General Entertainment
Authority (GEA) of Saudi Arabia, for the event that is also being
called Riyadh Season Noche UFC. Alalshikh has also openly declared
the event a competitor against Canelo Alvarez’s boxing match
against Edgar Berlanga, which takes place in the same city on the
same night. UFC head honcho Dana White also confirmed that the
Sphere spectacle will be a one-time thing for the promotion. Both
White and the UFC’s parent company TKO Group Holdings’ chief
financial officer Andrew Schleimer have admitted that the card will
burn a hole in the company’s pockets, which is expected to pay
long-term dividends, if not immediate ones.

However, O’Malley doesn’t like his stardom getting overshadowed by
the magnitude of the venue. “Sugar” is unhappy with the way the
event is being billed as the Sphere card instead of his title
defense against Dvalishvili. However, the bantamweight champ
expects things to perhaps change with hardly three weeks to go
before fight night.

“I’m very excited. Now that’s it’s like the last pay-per-view was
last weekend. It’s always the next pay-per-view that’s being talked
about. So now that that fight’s over, we got the Sphere coming up.
A little annoyed-ish about the promotion of the Sphere, the show,”
the 29-year-old said in an interview with Michael
Bisping. “I’m the one doing the interviews, not the Sphere.
Let’s promote Sean vs. Merab, the Sugar Show. I’m the one, let’s go
baby. But it is what it is, the Sphere’s gonna be fuc*ing
legendary, it’ll be epic, it’ll be cool. But yeah, I think these
next few weeks, things are really going to start coming out.”

Undefeated since 2020, O’Malley knocked out Dvalishvili’s close
friend Aljamain
Sterling to win the title last year before defending it via a
dominant unanimous decision against Marlon Vera
this past March. Meanwhile, Dvalishvili most recently scored a
unanimous decision over former champ Henry
Cejudo in February to extend his winning streak to 10, the
longest in the history of the division.