UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley was quick to respond to callouts from both undefeated Nurmagomedov and surging Figueiredo.
The UFC bantamweight title picture is shaping up nicely, with the champion set to defend his title at The Sphere in Las Vegas next month as two top contenders stake their claim to be next in line for the 135lb title.
Sean O’Malley gets called out by not one, but two UFC Abu Dhabi winners
Sean O’Malley must have felt like Prom Queen last night as he was called to dance by not one, but two of the UFC bantamweight division’s top prospects: Undefeated Russian Umar Nurmagomedov, and former flyweight king Deiveson Figueiredo.
Following his unanimous decision win over Marlon Vera, in which ‘Chito’ was dropped for the first time in his career, the Brazilian powerhouse would call his shot: “Hey Dana, I beat this guy tonight – Merab, O’Malley, I want to fight for the title next!”
Less than 90 minutes later, Sean O’Malley was called out by a second title contender – with the undefeated Nurmagomedov also shooting his shot following his own unanimous decision victory over Cory Sandhagen.
Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long to hear the response of the UFC bantamweight champion, who published a full reaction video on the main card to social media.
Sean O’Malley says he’d ‘whoop’ Umar Nurmagomedov just to make Conor McGregor jealous
Posting his reaction to the UFC Abu Dhabi main card via the official Suga Sean O’Malley YouTube channel, the popular bantamweight champion was particularly impressed by Nurmagomedov’s performance as he secured a vitally important win over a tough competitor.
“Alright boys, Umar got the job done in a pretty close fight in my opinion, it looked like he did win but again that was a very close fight. Cory is one of the pound-for-pound best fighters in the world so for Umar… Incredible performance – that’s as high-level of a fight as it gets.”
“Me vs Umar next, question mark, hashtag ‘We’ll See, LOL’,” teased the 135lb king in response to the idea of a title fight between him and the 18-0 superstar-in-the-making.
Yet the flashy striker couldn’t help but also take a quick jab at rival Conor McGregor over the possibility of taking a Umar Nurmagomedov 0, with the superstar pair having been embroiled in a bitter online feud over recent weeks.
“Undefeated Umar 18-0 versus undefeated Suga Show 19-0, beat a Dagestanian – I wouldn’t mind that, that’d be a real good way to get at Conor – oomph… Imagine how jealous he would be, I might just go whoop Umar just for that reason alone – it could be a potential massive next fight.”
Whilst O’Malley is confident that he’d be able to hand Umar Nurmagomedov his first professional loss, that isn’t to say that ‘Suga’ is overlooking his next title challenger; Georgian wrecking ball, Merab Dvalishvili.
That fight is scheduled for the main event of UFC 306 at The Sphere, with O’Malley teasing that should he KO Dvalishvili as he expects, Umar Nurmagomedov could very well be next in his sugary-sweet crosshairs.
“I got to get through Merab next obviously, we all know how dangerous Merab is, he’s on a nine-fight win streak (Dvalishvili is actually on a 10-fight win streak), he beat like five former champions – the dude’s as legit as it gets, I just believe that I would put his lights out and [move] onto the next.
“Umar could be next, but same before I fought Chito – I had to figure out Chito first, and I did very easily. So, I got to go and take Merab out, and we’ll see what the Suga Show has next.”
On the callout from Deiveson Figueiredo, the bantamweight champion was again open to the idea of facing the former flyweight king for the 135lb title, albeit that portion was recorded prior to the main event.
“Deiveson Figueiredo gets the decision win over Chito, it was a pretty close fight-ish, there were a couple of exciting moments but for the most part it looked like Figueiredo was conserving energy, didn’t really want to gas out.