Sean O’Malley says he lost ‘Chito’ Vera bout on purpose to set up huge rematch

Sean O’Malley says he lost ‘Chito’ Vera bout on purpose to set up huge rematch

Sean O’Malley claims he lost the only fight of his professional mixed martial arts (MMA) career on purpose.

O’Malley only has one blemish on his MMA record. That being a first-round TKO loss to Marlon Vera in 2020. Since, O’Malley has racked up five-straight wins, including a bantamweight title victory in his last outing against Aljamain Sterling last month. Now, O’Malley finds himself in a position where his very first title defense could actually be against Vera.

Speaking on The MMA Hour, O’Malley explained that he lost his fight to Vera on purpose in order to set up the massive rematch with UFC gold on the line.

“If I’m healthy and ready to go, I’d love to fight in December,” O’Malley said. “If I fight ‘Chito’ next it’s because that’s what I want, and that’s the biggest fight. I’m in the fight business and I want the biggest fights. I never lost sleep over this fight. I’ve actually been playing chess for a long time. I lost that [first] fight on purpose just so that I could go out there and knock out ‘Aljo’ and have that be my biggest fight, rematch.”

A rematch with Vera certainly makes sense at this point in time. Vera competed on the same card as O’Malley at UFC 292, where he topped Pedro Munhoz via unanimous decision. Now, Vera is the No. 6-ranked fighter at 135 pounds. Both O’Malley and Vera have expressed interest in fighting each other next, and it sounds like that’s exactly what could happen.

Of course, bantamweight has no shortage of challengers, as names such as Merab Dvalishvili and Henry Cejudo are also waiting in the wings as favorites to line up against O’Malley in his first career title defense.