Sean O’Malley has already failed to beat Merab Dvalishvili on two occasions, but he still believes he’s the only fighter who can stop the dominant bantamweight champion.

“To beat Merab, you just have to land that shot,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “You have to be able to f*cking snipe him, and he was getting a little bit more reckless. The more confident he gets in his striking, the more gaps it leaves open to be caught.

“I don’t really see anyone beating him. I do think I’m the only one… I hate to say it, I hate to f*cking say it, I’m the only one that can beat him. Give me my shot at the White House. No, I got to go out and get some wins, but, yeah, I don’t see anyone really beating Merab anytime soon. He needs to be clipped, needs to be knocked out, put to sleep to beat him, and I don’t see anyone, other than myself, being able to do that.”

It would be hard to make a case for the trilogy fight at the moment though given that O’Malley was beaten even more decisively in their rematch back in June, suffering a third round defeat via a north-south choke.

It’s known that Dvalishvili wants to rematch another former champ Petr Yan next, which O’Malley feels is a valid option, though he also suggests his own teammate Mario Bautista as another possibility depending on how his next fight goes.

“I’m always excited to see Petr fight,” O’Malley said. “We saw Petr-Merab, it was 50-45, wasn’t that exciting. If that was the next fight, I’d watch. Mario [Bautista] vs. Umar [Nurmagomedov] is coming up. If Mario can go out there and finish Umar, or even just win a decisive decision, I think that would be next fight — Mario vs. Merab.”