Sean O’Malley has revealed that he didn’t take long licking his wounds after suffering a 3rd round submission loss to Merab Dvaliashvili in their bantamweight title rematch back in June, and in fact soon after tried to set-up a short-notice fight against another leading contender in Cory Sandhagen.
“I was actually trying to fight Cory [Sandhagen] when the co-main event fell out for that Max and Dustin fight [at UFC 318],” O’Malley said on the Overdogs podcast. “I threw my name out to the UFC. Three weeks, me vs. Cory would be sweet.”
Sandhagen had just come off a TKO victory over Deiveson Figueiredo in May, taking him to the No.4 spot in the rankings, so a fight with the still No.1 ranked O’Malley was certainly a valid options, but it turns out that the UFC had other plans for ‘The Sandman’.
“It didn’t make sense for the UFC,” O’Malley said. “Cory vs. Merab is the fight was the next fight to make,” O’Malley said, with that title clash now official for UFC 320 in Las Vegas on October 4th.
Nevertheless, O’Malley believes it’s only a matter of time before he does fight Sandhagen.
“Yeah. Me vs. Cory is a very interesting fight,” O’Malley said. “That’s one that’s bound to happen sooner than later.”
There was some element of doubt about how O’Malley would respond to his back-to-back defeats against Dvalishvili given that it puts him in an awkward spot in the division while his nemesis is still ruling the roost, so it’s good to hear that ‘Suga’ is still eager to get back into the Octagon against other top contenders sooner rather than later.
