To paraphrase UFC president Dana White, if you don’t know then now you know when it comes to “Sugar” Sean O’Malley.
The 25-year-old bantamweight phenom said it would be the “Sugar Show 2.0” when he returned in March from a frustrating two-year Usada suspension for trace amounts of a prohibited substance. He wasn’t lying, getting an impressive first-round TKO of Jose Alberto Quinonez. He was even more devastating in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
The Dana White’s Contender Series stand-out has clearly made major strides, moving to 12-0 overall and 4-0 in the UFC with a spectacular first-round walk-off KO of veteran Eddie Wineland in the UFC 250 main card opener at the company’s Apex facility.
“He’s so much cleaner now, he’s so much better,” analysts Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan agreed on the broadcast. The hype is for real.
This was a big step up in competition for O’Malley, against a former WEC bantamweight champion. But he said there was “absolutely nothing” different coming into it.
“I said it before and I’ll say it again, I think I have the best striking in MMA,” O’Malley told Rogan in a post-fight interview. “I know it sounds silly because I haven’t fought that many guys, but I will continue to do this throughout my career.
No one had ever done this to Wineland (24-13-1). O’Malley drew him in by feinting an uppercut, then dropped him out of nowhere with a nasty right hand and stopped the show at 1:54 of the first round.
He didn’t even bother to follow up, turning away as the referee rushed in, and Rogan proclaimed it the best walk-off knockout he’d ever seen.
A post-fight bonus in undoubtedly coming O’Malley’s way. “Yeah, I think that was worth 100 Gs [US$100,000] rather than 50 Gs,” he said.
The 135-pound division is officially on notice, with the American set to move up the rankings in a big way.
“There’s some super exciting [bantamweight] fights here soon,” O’Malley said, with Cody Garbrandt vs Raphael Assuncao, and Aljamain Sterling vs Cory Sandhagen to come on the same card. “I’m definitely gonna be watching those closely.
“I’ll sit down and talk to the UFC, hopefully renegotiate my contract like I was supposed to do last time and figure out what’s next.”
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