Petr Yan was supposed to bring Sean O’Malley down to earth. That was the hunch, anyway. Built like a cartoon wiseguy in a souped-up 5-foot-7 frame, the Russian Yan had crushed plenty of the top bantamweights before heading into the pair’s bout at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi. Why wouldn’t he snap a colorful string bean like “Suga” Sean O’Malley, who stands nearly 6 feet tall, right in half?
See, that’s the thing. O’Malley doesn’t go in for conventions. When Dana White said he had the “it” factor back when the then-23-year-old, frizzy-Fro’d O’Malley was on the Contender Series, you kind of understood. O’Malley had a certain look. A kind of joie de vivre. He was brash. Audacious. A fresh-faced hellion who seemed built for big moments. He won the Contender Series right around the time he smoked a fat J with Snoop Dogg. That high went viral.
And he beat Petr Yan, too. Now he’s next in line for a title fight, even though he wasn’t even ranked in the top 10 just a few days before Halloween. All of this, he says, is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“It’s inevitable that I’m going to be a world champion,” O’Malley says. “You can go back and watch the interviews during that Contender Series five
