LAS VEGAS – When Kris Moutinho threw his name in the hat to fight Sean O’Malley, he wasn’t too hopeful he’d get it.
After Louis Smolka was forced to withdraw from his UFC 264 fight against O’Malley, a horde of fighters in and out of the UFC offered to step in and replace him, including the likes of UFC bantamweights Ricky Simon, Brian Kelleher, Merab Dvalishvili and Cody Stamann.
But it was newcomer Moutinho (9-4 MMA, 0-0 UFC) who got the call, and he explained how it happened.
“It was a surprise to me, as well,” Moutinho told reporters, including MMA Junkie, at Wednesday’s media session at the UFC Apex. “I’m just as thrown for a loop as you guys, so it’s crazy. I love it. My coach, when the sweepstakes came out, the Sean O’Malley sweepstakes, he was like, ‘It’s a long shot man. You want to just throw your name in?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, why not? Let’s do it.’ A couple of days went by. I wasn’t hearing anything. I was like, ‘It’s probably not going to happen.’
“He was like, ‘OK, you made it past the first round. They took your name. They’re going to look at it. Within 15 minutes, I was getting DMs from random people telling me that I’m going to get knocked out and get beat up and I was like, ‘Oh man, what are you guys talking about?’ Five minutes after that, he called me back and he was like, ‘Yeah man – we got it. Just get ready. Cut the weight’ and let’s go show the world who I am.”
Moutinho knows the kind of opportunity that’s ahead of him Saturday when facing a star like O’Malley (13-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC), but he thinks he has the experience and style to break him.
“He’s a very talented, explosive kid, but I just don’t think somebody’s been in there to test, to push him that way,” Moutinho said. “The only time he was kind of pushed was the (Marlon) ‘Chito’ (Vera) fight, and he got hurt. So he has a little fallback to why he was going to win that fight, but he got hurt. I think I’m just going to stay in his face, put the pressure, and I think that’s something that he’s not comfortable with.
“I’ve been putting on great fights my entire career, and I’ve fought some of the best talent outside the UFC and some of them are in the UFC now. I fought Manny Bermudez when he was in the UFC in my amateur career and then I fought Tony Gravely not too long ago in a crazy fight. So I’ve been fighting some of the better dudes in the country for a very long time.”
Kris Moutinho says call to fight Sean O’Malley at UFC 264 came as a surprise
