Marlon Vera questions if Sean O’Malley is ready to challenge UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling.
O’Malley (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) challenges Sterling (23-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) in the UFC 292 headliner Aug. 19 at TD Garden in Boston.
“Sugar’s” most notable win came over former champion Petr Yan last October at UFC 280. Sterling, on the other hand, has defended his belt against Yan, T.J. Dillashaw, and Henry Cejudo. Outside of O’Malley’s win over Yan, Vera has not been impressed with his resume. O’Malley’s lone-career loss came to Vera in 2020 by TKO.
“If you see accolades and who fought who, the fight shouldn’t be a problem for Sterling,” Vera said on The MMA Hour. “O’Malley can say whatever the f*ck he say, the two guys that have been in the top five that beat him were what? Me, was one and I beat him, I put him out. Pedro Munhoz who’s been around and is a top-five caliber guy, poked him in the eye and the fight was a no-contest, in a fight that he didn’t show anything.
“I mean you get an opportunity to fight somebody in the top five like that, you try to go and smoke him. Then, the B-level competition, yeah he put all of them out. Almeida was washed a lot of times. He wasn’t washed out, he was super washed out. Eddie Wineland, respect to the guy, he’s a legend but he got KO’d like four more times, or three more times. Then, the green-haired kid couldn’t win a fight in the UFC.”
Vera understands the UFC’s decision to fast-track O’Malley due to his popularity, but doesn’t think his work warrants a title shot.
“I get it,” Vera continued. “You got talent, you got all this hype, we’re in the YouTube and TikTok era. You got a couple kids that follow you in that world but fighting-wise, you didn’t fight nobody. And then you grab Yan after a no-contest. Yes, you looked good in the Yan fight. People were expecting less from you. Yan can still fight but how good is he? Who has he beat? Who has he been in a fight with?
“That one punch thing won’t last forever. We saw it with Johnny Hendricks, maybe three or four fights, and after that – once you fight a better caliber of guys it doesn’t happen like that. And on paper, it’s hard to think O’Malley is going to win, but he could and that will only benefit me. But I’m not really rooting for nobody so we’ll see what happens. I’m ready to fight, and I know that.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
