Georgia’s Merab Dvalishvili scored a second-round submission win over Sean O’Malley to retain his bantamweight title at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 316 on Saturday, with Kayla Harrison also winning by submission in the co-main event, tapping out Juliana Pena to claim the women’s bantamweight crown.
In front of a packed crowd at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, which included US President Donald Trump and retired heavyweight great Mike Tyson, Dvalishvili, a 34-year-old from the country of Georgia, won the belt in a convincing, although not aesthetically pleasing, unanimous decision.
Dvalishvili (19-4) sat on top of the cage and shouted toward the fans at the start of an exuberant celebration of his 13th straight Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) victory.
Photo” AP
“I’m on top of the world,” he said inside the cage.
He was the only 135-pound champion on the card who won his bout.
Two-time Olympic judo gold medalist Kayla Harrison is now a UFC champion.
Photo: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images/USA Today
Harrison tapped out 135-pound champion Julianna Pena with five seconds left in the second round to add another major championship in her fight career.
No US judoka — man or woman — had ever won an Olympic gold medal before Harrison beat Britain’s Gemma Gibbons to win the women’s 78kg division at the 2012 London Olympics. She won gold again four years later at the Rio de Janeiro Games and made her MMA debut in 2018.
The 34-year-old Harrison was a two-time US$1 million prize champion in the Professional Fighters League lightweight championship division before she moved to UFC last year. She won her first two UFC bouts and her record — now a sparkling 19-1 in MMA overall — coupled with her fame, made her an instant contender for a title shot.
Photo: AFP
She needed just three fights to become a champion.
Harrison dropped to her knees in a teary celebration. She then called out Amanda Nunes, who retired in 2023, but said ahead of the fight she would return to the cage to fight the winner.
It appears a title fight with Harrison looms in the UFC.
Photo: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images/USA Today
Harrison called out Nunes to enter the ring, and after some encouragement from announcer Joe Rogan for security to open the cage door, she walked in and the two went face-to-face. Nunes said she would indeed fight Harrison at some point for the 135-pound belt.
The crowd went wild as the two engaged in a brief staredown.
They had roared in delight hours earlier when Trump walked out to a thunderous standing ovation just ahead of the start of the UFC pay-per-view card. Trump was accompanied by UFC president Dana White and the pair headed to their cageside seats for UFC 316 to Kid Rock’s American Bad Ass.
Photo: AFP
Harrison left the cage after the win and hugged Trump and posed for photos with the president and his entourage.
It was not the only nod to Trump’s latest appearance at a UFC fight.
UFC fighter Kevin Holland choked out Vicente Luque to win the first fight with Trump in the building. He scaled the cage and shook hands with Trump. He briefly chatted with Trump and White before he returned for his post-fight interview.
Joe Pyfer draped himself in the US flag after he defeated Kelvin Gastelum in a middleweight bout by unanimous decision.
“We’ve got the president of the United States! We’ve got Mike Tyson,” Pyfer shouted inside the cage.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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