Sean O’Malley has reacted to Petr Yan’s big UFC 333 win, which should have almost guaranteed him a bantamweight title shot next. Instead, a cageside Song Yadong stole the spotlight, and now “Suga” is left having to justify himself as No. 1 contender.
The vibe was high on a O’Malley stream after Yan beat Merab Dvalishvili 48-47 on all three judges’ scorecards (highlights here). Dvalishvili holds two wins over O’Malley. O’Malley holds a win over Yan. So Yan winning was great for O’Malley. But then “Suga”
went unmentioned following the fight. Color commentator Daniel Cormier suggested Yadong as a potential next fight.
“I beat him like 6 months ago,” an annoyed O’Malley said. “I’m fighting Petr Yan next, I don’t care. It’s gonna be the greatest, biggest bantamweight fight in UFC history.”
“Song Yadong was flown out to Abu Dhabi, they’re maybe assuming Merab was gonna win,” O’Malley said later. “I had shit I gotta do. I’m in Florida, I’m at a PrizePicks event, I couldn’t make it … But yeah, Song was out there. I’m assuming he was out there in case Merab won. DC kind of laid it up.”
“I’m surprised Petr didn’t call me out. I don’t know why. It’s the biggest fight to make. In his eyes, like, s–t, I called Chito [Vera] out after when I won the bell. I’m like, give me the easiest f–king fight ever. Not ever. But … I’ll take it. You know, I’ll take whoever, but if I could pick, I wanna fight Chito.”
If O’Malley was hoping UFC CEO Dana White might back him up as next for the title, that didn’t happen.
“Me and the matchmakers were texting the entire night about Song Yadong and O’Malley,” White said at the UFC 333 post-fight press conference. “Both are obviously great options and it’s a good problem to have to figure out which one of those two could be next.”
While O’Malley holds wins over both Yan and Yadong, “The Karate Kid” has been more active since the O’Malley loss, beating Deiveson Figueiredo and Umar Nurmagomedov in back to back main events. You could definitely argue that O’Malley’s sole win over Aiemann Zahabi back in June doesn’t look quite as impressive in comparison.
So who gets next? Who do you want to see get next? Let us know in the comments.
