Sean O’Malley has admitted that he’s perfectly happy to get an ‘easy’ fight next time out against an unranked opponent since he gets paid the same whether he goes up against a big name or an unknown prospect.
“Next fight, a lot of people want me to fight someone ranked,” O’Malley said on the ‘No Jumper’ podcast. “They wanted me to fight someone ranked last fight. I was supposed to fight Luis Smolka. For me, I have a contract to fight a certain amount of fights and I only get paid a certain amount of money whether I fight Louis Smolka, the dude I was supposed to fight, or I fight Petr Yan, the number one bantamweight in the UFC. I get paid the same. I’m gonna fight [the lower ranked fighter] and I’m going to fight this dude on a Conor McGregor pay-per-view.”
O’Malley went on to say that it was a strategy that former UFC star Chael Sonnen had once advocated.
“Chael Sonnen always says fight the worst dude on the highest part of the card. A lot of bantamweights, and just people in the UFC, they definitely hate [me for it]. It comes from jealousy. I’m getting way more eye-balls than them … I perform in there. You can go and watch some of these guys perform and you literally pick up your phone, start surfing Instagram, you just don’t give a fuck what they’re doing.”
O’Malley has been increasingly outspoken in recent times about apparent animosity towards him within the UFC and even previously named matchmaker Sean Shelby as someone who he believes has an issue with him.
With that in mind, it’s interesting to note that, according to reporter Ariel Helwani, the UFC actually wants O’Malley to fight Frankie Edgar next, which would in no way meet ‘Suga’ Sean’s expectation of an easy fight.
That being said, the cracks have been showing in the 39-year-old Edgar’s record recently, having lost three of his last four fights, including a TKO loss to ‘The Korean Zombie’ and most recently a tough KO loss to Cory Sandhagen.
However, at this stage it seems the fight is only a possibility, with no official confirmation that it will actually happen at this stage.
