Coach Ray Longo: Merab Dvalishvili is 'going to have to eat some punches' to beat Sean O'Malley at UFC 306

Ray Longo can’t see a world where Merab Dvalishvili takes the title from Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 without a struggle.

Longo, who primarily coached Dvalishvili (17-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) for much of his career at Serra-Longo Fight Team on Long Island, N.Y., before the bantamweight contender relocated to Las Vegas, thinks O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) is going to find his moments to land with his hands in Saturday’s title bout at Sphere (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews).

It’s just a matter of whether Dvalishvili can absorb the damage and continue to push forward into his own game plan.

“He’s going to have to eat some punches to win this fight – period,” Longo said on “The Anik & Florian Podcast” ahead of UFC 306. “O’Malley is a sharpshooter. If you go in there thinking you’re not going to get hit or you’re just going to do this or do that, I think that’s a huge mistake.”

Dvalishvili, to this point in his career, has never been knocked out. He’s been dropped just once in his 12-fight UFC tenure, according to UFC Stats, and that came against former title challenger Marlon Moraes in an epic Performance of the Night comeback at UFC 266 in September 2021.

Longo remembers the Moraes fight well, he said, and he hopes Dvalishvili won’t repeat mistakes going into the UFC title shot against O’Malley that he’s worked so hard for with a 10-fight winning streak.

“If I tell you how many times I worked on getting underneath the left hook with him (before the Moraes fight) – and that’s exactly the punch he got hit with,” Longo said. “I said, ‘You’re going to have to walk through fire at some point in this fight.’ That’s exactly what he did. It’s going to be kind of the same thing. Merab knows what he’s up against.

“I think O’Malley is really good. I don’t think O’Malley has ever faced anybody with the pressure of Merab, and I don’t think Merab’s fought anybody with the length and the accuracy and the power of O’Malley.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.