Sean
O’Malley rebounded from his first career defeat in emphatic
fashion at UFC 260.
The 26-year-old bantamweight nearly had a walkoff knockout victory
against Thomas
Almeida in Round 1 and when that didn’t quite come to fruition,
“Sugar” put on a clinic until the finish did arrive 3:52 into the
final frame.
After suffering a TKO loss to Marlon Vera
at UFC 252 last August, O’Malley appears to be back on track as one
of the top rising talents at 135 pounds.
“He looked good coming back in off of the ‘Chito’ Vera fight, he
came in tonight against a real tough kid, durable, with serious
punching power and he put on a masterpiece tonight,” UFC president
Dana White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference.
“He picked him apart, stayed on the outside and did whatever he
wanted to do. He hurt him [in the first round], thought he finished
him and then finished him again in the third round. You really
couldn’t have put on a better performance than he did tonight.”
O’Malley was one of the first stars to emerge from Dana White’s
Contender Series in 2017, and the promotion has been invested in
giving him a significant push. That all could have come to a
screeching halt after the loss to Vera, where O’Malley struggled to
defend low kicks and suffered an apparent leg injury before falling
via TKO in Round 1.
“It’s so satisfying. A lot of people were talking about that,”
O’Malley said. “For eight months, I’ve been dealing with it,
getting messages and just saying stuff like that. To be able to get
out there against a good kickboxer, who was trying to kick my legs…
It was a good performance. It feels good to shut people up… I don’t
know if you can ever shut people up, but it feels good.”
O’Malley put a stamp on the fight when he unloading with a massive
standing-to-ground punch after sending Almeida to the canvas with a
counter left hand in Round 3. After missing out on a potential
finish in the opening period, he wasn’t taking any chances.
“I wanted to come in here and put his lights out. The bottom line
was that I wanted to come in here and I didn’t want to win a
decision. I wanted to put his lights out and that’s what happened.
I’m very happy with it,” O’Malley said.
“He was out like before I threw that. He wasn’t there, he
was out. The ref told me after the first round, he said, ‘Hey, if I
don’t stop the fight, you have to keep fighting.’ It was an
unnecessary shot – nothing to the ref, but I looked in his eyes and
he was gone. But if I have to land one more bomb, I’ll throw
it.”