Cory
Sandhagen believes Sean
O’Malley has the privilege of choosing his opponents.
Sandhagen (18-6) has been calling out O’Malley (19-3) for a
matchup, which would be a striking treat for fans. Instead,
O’Malley is now booked to fight Aiemann
Zahabi at
UFC White House on June 14.
Sandhagen holds Sean O’Malley responsible for them not being booked
against each other. O’Malley claims he was never offered Sandhagen
for the White House. However, Sandhagen believes that’s not how it
works for “Suga.” Sandhagen thinks O’Malley has the privilege of
rejecting and picking fights of his choice. According to Sandhagen,
not mentioning his name specifically was a clear duck from
O’Malley. Sandhagen has now given up hope of the O’Malley matchup
after multiple callouts. “The Sandman” also believes O’Malley will
retire if he loses to Zahabi or even if he doesn’t see a certain
route to a title run next.
‘A Cop-Out Punk Move’
“I don’t think the dude’s ever going to fight me,” Sandhagen told
Home of Fight. “… If he doesn’t win this fight,
I think he’ll retire. If he doesn’t get another title shot or run
or fights for a belt again, he’s going to retire. The whole ‘I was
never offered to fight Sandhagen’ thing is just not how it works
with a guy like Sean O’Malley. Sean
O’Malley gets asked, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ And he
says. And any other answer than Cory
Sandhagen is a cop-out punk move. Me and him is the fight to
make. In my opinion, it’s on him that it wasn’t made.”
O’Malley rebounded from consecutive title losses against Merab
Dvalishvili with a win over Yadong Song
at UFC 324
this past January. Meanwhile, Sandhagen is 1-2 in his last three
and coming off a failed title bid against Dvalishvili at UFC 320
last October.