Sean O’Malley to undergo hip surgery after UFC 306 title loss

Sean O’Malley is looking forward to a long hiatus from competition, with the former champion scheduled to undergo hip surgery early next month.

The 29-year-old suffered a torn labrum in his upper hip 10 weeks ago but has been able to overcome the injury through fight camp to face Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306 on Saturday in Las Vegas. O’Malley (18-2) lost his 135-pound title to Dvalishvili via unanimous decision. He will undergo surgery during the first week of October and has said his return to the Octagon could be delayed for six months to a year.

“I’m having surgery on October 3rd,” O’Malley told online streamer Aden Ross. “I’ve torn my left labrum muscle in my hip. That’s the only reason I’m out for so long. This surgery should only take me two months to get back from, then two months to recover. A year is a long time, it could be six to eight months. You never know.”

In his podcast with trainer Tim Welch, O’Malley admitted it could be up to a year before he fights again, taking into account surgery, recovery and then a full fight camp. He explained that the injury had nothing to do with his defeat to Dvalishvili, where he lost 214-49 and struggled to defend Dvalishvili’s suffocating ground game.

“I lost the most weight, I felt the best, and I didn’t make any excuses,” O’Malley said. “My mom would say, ‘You’re not the same, what happened?’ I didn’t make any excuses. I just got beat up. And everyone kept asking me, ‘There’s something wrong with me.’ I didn’t make any excuses.”

In the immediate aftermath of his loss, O’Malley was heavily criticized by his bantamweight rivals Cory Sandhagen and Henry Cejudo. Dvalishvili, on the other hand, is likely to face previously undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov in his first title defense, although the UFC has not announced that and Dvalishvili has said he would prefer to fight former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo.