LAS VEGAS – “The Suga Show” returned to the octagon at UFC 248 when Sean O’Malley scored an eye-catching first-round TKO finish.
Now the 25-year-old bantamweight says he’ll look to cherry-pick the date and location for his next fight.
O’Malley finished Jose Quinonez in 122 seconds in the night’s featured preliminary bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and said the moment he chatted with UFC co-commentator Joe Rogan after the fight was a big part of his pre-fight visualization ahead of the bout.
“I definitely had envisioned that, actually standing there talking to Joe a lot,” he said backstage after his win. “I just let myself kind of just feel it all and let it all in. It felt good.”
The fight marked the occasion of O’Malley’s first fight in two years, and he picked up where he left off to extend his perfect professional record with the eighth stoppage win of his career. Despite the lengthy layoff, O’Malley said there was never any concern about being rusty in his return to action.
“I kept laughing every time everyone asked me if I would have ring rust,” he said. “I think it did nothing but benefit my performance and I was able to get really good in those last couple of years I’ve been off. Every time I got asked about that, I kind of laughed.”
There also was no sign of any departure from the fighting style that saw him explode into the UFC by way of Dana White’s Contender Series in 2017. Although his style certainly draws the plaudits from the crowd, O’Malley said it was simply his fighting style, rather than a concerted effort to put on a show for the fans with each performance.
“I think just fighting in general is such a sweet thing,” he said. “The way I fight, it’s not necessarily to entertain. It’s just an entertaining style. I didn’t feel like I had to do anything but just be me in there, and that’s what happened.”
Having had to sit out the last two years through suspension and injury, one could forgive O’Malley for wanting to jump straight back into action as quickly as possible, but the MMA Lab-trained bantamweight said he would consider the upcoming UFC schedule before pitching himself to the matchmakers for his next assignment.
“I want to obviously fight. I’m healthy,” he said. “I don’t think they have any fights (in Las Vegas) until ‘International Fight Week’ (in July), so I’m going to have to check out which cards, where I’d like to fight. I think I’m in a position where I can say, ‘I’d like to fight there, (or) I’d like to fight there.’ So I’m going to go look at the calendar, check it out, (and) if nothing pops up, maybe ‘International Fight Week.’”
Sean O'Malley laughed off ring rust worries ahead of first-round TKO return at UFC 248