Cory Sandhagen loves Sean O’Malley’s suggestion of a championship bout at the White House.
But first thing’s first, Sandhagen has to win the UFC bantamweight championship, and he has the chance to do just that when he challenges Merab Dvalishvili in the co-main event of UFC 320 on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
On his podcast, O’Malley said he sees a path to fight for the belt at UFC White House if he wins his next fight, and if Sandhagen defeats Dvalishvili. Sandhagen would certainly take
that road if available to him.
“Yeah, for sure, O’Malley’s been on my radar, I’ve been on his radar for a long time, and yeah, I’ll be on the A-side of it this time,” Sandhagen told MMA Fighting. “For a long time, O’Malley was the more famous guy who didn’t really want to, I don’t think, have too many conversations about fighting me.
“But when you’re champ, everyone wants to fight you. So yeah, it’ll be fun to be on the A-side of the side of that conversation instead of feeling like I’m begging for a fight against a star. I’ll be the star.”
O’Malley doesn’t have a fight booked at the moment as he finds himself in unfamiliar territory — entering a fight on a two-fight skid, with both losses coming to Dvalishvili. After losing the belt at UFC 306 to Dvalishvili this past September, O’Malley was dominated and finished in the rematch at UFC 316 in June.
Sandhagen has seen the renderings of what the UFC White House event may look like, and he’s intrigued by everything it could be, especially given the current political climate we live in.
“I mean, shit, it’s gonna be a once in a lifetime thing,” Sandhagen said. “It feels like it’s like the Sphere, but on steroids. Everyone was excited about the Sphere and this is going to take it to a whole another level, dude.”
“I don’t know, that that shit is crazy, especially just the way politics is kind of our new oracle or f*cking kind of identity structure and just how big that is right now. Yeah, I don’t know, that’d be crazy. And then walking out of the Oval Office sounds super weird. I wonder where we’ll warm up. Yeah, it’ll be fun.”
Sandhagen earned his first shot at undisputed gold after finishing Deiveson Figueiredo in the main event of UFC Des Moines in May. The 33-year-old competed for the interim title at UFC 267 in October 2021, losing a Fight of the Night decision to Petr Yan.
Since then, Sandhagen has won four of five and feels at this point in his career, he is primed to become champion. When asked how it will feel if Dana White wraps that title around his waist, Sandhagen says he isn’t quite sure.
“At this point in my life, man, I’m 33, so I’m kind of moderately mature, so I don’t think that the belt is going to do anything like internal happiness-wise,” Sandhagen explained. “Sometimes I think I’m living in the Matrix because my life is so awesome. So I don’t think that a human being can have a better life than I kind of feel like I have, and I know that if I lost everything, I’ve created a place inside me where I know that I’ll still be happy, so I don’t really expect it to do anything for that. But I do really think that it’s going to open up some really awesome doors for me and so I’m excited to see. Just being put in the category of UFC champion is very different than being put in the category of UFC fighter.
“So I’m excited to see what type of doors and what type of avenues that opens up for me, in that regard. I think that the last 10 percent of anything is always the hardest, and I’ve committed myself to this thing for over a decade – like 15,16 years at this point, and I’m really excited to watch it come to fruition. But all along, I’ve kind of known that it’s going to happen.”
