Sean
O’Malley didn’t avoid social media or quit smoking to have a
better training camp for UFC
316.
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O’Malley lost his bantamweight title via unanimous decision against
Merab
Dvalishvili at UFC 306 last year. Usually a big presence on
social media, “Suga” drastically dropped appearances. Previously a
big marijuana advocate, O’Malley has also stopped smoking
since.
Many believe these lifestyle changes are O’Malley’s attempt to
train better for the rematch against Dvalishvili in the main event
at UFC 316 this weekend. However, O’Malley says that is not the
case. O’Malley doesn’t think his social media usage or smoking
habits adversely affected his training camp for his previous
encounter against Dvalishvili. While the former champ expects those
changes to perhaps positively affect his performance, that was not
the initial intention. O’Malley claims to have brought about these
drastic changes for inner peace.
“I feel like I’ve benefited a lot from limiting distractions in my
life… I didn’t do that because, ‘Oh I didn’t have a good training
camp last fight. This is how I’m gonna beat Merab and all that
stuff.’ he told Demetrious
Johnson. „All these decisions were not even performance based.
I don’t think my last training camp was affected because I was on
social media or like I smoked. I think getting off all that will
probably affect my performance in a positive way but it wasn’t
like, ‘Oh f—-ing I gotta beat Merab now so I’m not gonna do all
[that] stuff.’ I chose to do all that stuff for more inner
peace.
Lifestyle changes are not the only adjustments O’Malley made for
UFC 316. O’Malley has also undergone surgery for his damaged hip
ahead of his rematch against “The Machine.” Both O’Malley and his
coach, Tim
Welch, have repeatedly said they have substantially increased
wrestling for this camp.