Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesHe’s the sport’s ranking “Suga” man.
He’s making the first defense of a newly won bantamweight title.
And he’s headlining his first pay-per-view as champion in one of the company’s go-to big-market destinations—UFC 299 at the Kaseya Center in Miami.
It’s precisely the sort of pressure that’s buckled hotshots in the past.
But it’s also precisely the sort of showcase that Sean O’Malley’s always craved.
Which means, the 29-year-old told Bleacher Report, that nerves are simply not a factor.
“I wanted to be in this position,” he said.
“Some guys just wanna fight, and, you know, be champ and not really deal with all the extra stuff, and they don’t. For me, I want it to be a show. I want it to be entertaining. I want more eyeballs. The brighter the light the better I perform. So yeah, none of this feels like a negative pressure at all.”
If the mindset reminds you of someone, it should.
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesO’Malley was working through the amateur ranks when a notorious Irishman began making titanic octagonal waves a decade ago, on his way to headlining the six biggest pay-per-views in the promotion’s 30-year history and eight of the 19 that have achieved seven-figure buyrates.
Not to mention a shotgun seat for the second-largest boxing show ever, too.
So, when it comes to blueprints for aspiring stars, you could do a lot worse than Conor McGregor’s in-ring path.
“I was kind of envisioning myself as being a Conor. Being a guy that, you know, goes above and beyond and is massive.” O’Malley said. “I want to be able to walk down the street and ask some random person ‘Do you know who Sean O’Malley is?’ That’s kind of been the goal. If you can go and ask anybody who Sean O’Malley is and they know, that means I’m making a lot of money.”
Which, unlike those who sought competition or loved combat, was always the draw for him.
“That’s why I really got into this,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily what a lot of people get into MMA or the UFC for, because there’s not necessarily a lot of money until you get to the spot that I’m in right now. And we made it here.”
Making it is one thing. But staying is another.
The new champ’s first test as an incumbent will be a familiar one, in the form of fifth-ranked contender Marlon “Chito” Vera, who just happens to be the guy responsible for O’Malley’s only pro loss.
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLCIt came at UFC 252 in Las Vegas after a sequence in which Vera landed a kick that O’Malley said instantly deadened his right calf and prompted an awkward step in which he appeared to injure his foot.
Vera eventually got his immobile foe to the floor and landed enough strikes, particularly a punishing left hand and a few follow-up elbows, to prompt referee Herb Dean’s intervention at 4:40 of Round 1.
O’Malley was out for seven months before returning for a run that’s seen him win five straight fights (alongside a no-contest), including a split-decision defeat of ex-bantamweight king Petr Yan in October 2022 and a second-round snipe last August of the man who’d succeeded Yan, Aljamain Sterling.
Vera has won five of seven over the same stretch and secured his shot with a scorecard win over Pedro Munhoz on the Sterling-O’Malley undercard at UFC 292 in Boston.
It’s the sort of rematch intrigue that PPV bean-counters at ESPN covet.
Still, their history aside, O’Malley insists it’s just another fight.
“I go back and forth with that a little bit at the end of the day,” he conceded.
Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesAt any rate, boiling a lanky, 5’11” frame down to 135 pounds is the first task of fight week, and, unlike some colleagues who multi-task during the cut by obsessing over every strategic nuance, O’Malley said an uncluttered mind has been a precursor to his biggest in-cage successes.
“I’m not an over-thinker about it, really. I feel like I’ve had enough experience and control over my thoughts to not really go down those rabbit holes to where some fighters kind of get lost,” he said. “I just trust the process. I’m gonna show up and do what I do. And it’s worked out so far. It’s just competition. I’m gonna go out there and do what I need to do to win.
“I don’t want to bring any extra emotion into the Octagon. That’s not how I fight. I fight emotionless. I fight free. So that’s kind of the head space I’m in, 100 percent. It’s another guy.”
Top contender Merab Dvalishvili would presumably be a post-Vera guy, given his unanimous three-round defeat of former two-division champ Henry Cejudo last month.
A longtime friend and training partner of Sterling, the popular Georgian has won 10 in a row—nine decisions, one TKO—since beginning his UFC stint with consecutive losses in 2017 and 2018.
But he’s just another step, too, on the long road to McGregor, who, according to Sportico, was the 33rd-highest paid athlete of all time at the end of 2022 (tied with NBA legend Magic Johnson), with inflation-adjusted earnings of $615 million.
It’s the sort of company O’Malley hopes to one day keep, suggesting that Gervonta Davis—a protege of McGregor’s boxing foil Floyd Mayweather Jr.—could be his crossover vehicle by 2026 or so.
“Oh yeah, there’s definitely more tiers. Multiple more tiers,” he said. “Conor’s Conor. Still a ways up there, and I’m just chasing that. It’s not in an ‘I want to be better than him or bigger than him’ sense. It’s just a good goal to set. I wanna get up there for whatever reason.
“Something definitely could come [with Davis]. I gotta go out there, defend the belt multiple times, maybe be champ-champ, and he’s gotta continue to go out there and build his stardom. Right now, it’s a big fight. But we’re not looking for big fights.
“We’re looking for massive fights. And for that to be a massive fight, we both have to go out there and get a lot of work done.”
Source : Bleacher Report