Bantamweight sensation from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Sean O’Malley has yet to reach the Top 10 of the 135-pound division, but he is already setting his sights on newly crowned division chief Petr Yan.
It helps that “Sugar” is the topic of conversation in the city.
“I’m easily the most talked about guy in the division,” O’Malley told MMA Fighting. “I’m talking a lot about Petr, Cody [Garbrandt], Enrique [Cejudo], all these guys, and they’re all responding. I’m clearly in the head of Petr, or Pete-R, whatever you want to call it. He is thinking of me. I think he’s dreaming of me, waking up and asking someone to help him tweet something. “
Yan (15-1) captured the vacant 135-pound strap with a technical victory over Jose Aldo at the UFC 251 pay-per-view (pay-per-view) event earlier this month in Abu Dhabi. As for O’Malley, he is expected to hook up with Marlon Vera at UFC 252 next month in Las Vegas.
“Nothing is personal,” O’Malley continued. “Little people like Petr, Cody, and Henry have short man syndrome, and they get mad at things and it’s personal. For me, it will always be a business. I think Conor [McGregor] he was very good at it until the Khabib [Nurmagomedov] fight. I feel like that got too personal and played with him. I definitely learned from that experience with Conor vs. Khabib, I can’t let it get personal. “
McGregor has long been considered a master of pre-fight head games, but perhaps he flew too close to the sun in preparation for his title fight Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229, where “Notorious” was defeated through submission. of the fourth race. .
O’Malley remains perfect on 12 trips to the cage.
