‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley, the talented up-and-coming UFC bantamweight, has gained a huge amount of attention since bursting onto the scene on Dana White’s Contender Series. The 25 year old returned from a two year layoff at UFC 248 and finished his opponent Jose Quinonez, in the very first round.

With the world on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, O’Malley has been having fun in recent weeks, posting some of the lighter moments of his training sessions to Instagram. Including poking some harmless fun at Tony Ferguson and Henry Cejudo. In one such post, he posted a photo of an MMA dummy with a caption that translated read, “thanks brother for the training, Henry Cejudo”.

Speaking to ESPN‘s Ariel Helwani, O’Malley was asked about the UFC bantamweight champion, Cejudo.

“I’d step up, but I don’t think he’d want that. I know it sounds silly, I have only three fights in the UFC, I’m not even ranked or nothing, but this is not a good matchup. I’m 5’11 and he 5’2.”

O’Malley then clarified his statement.

“Yeah, I have a high skill level,” he said. “I know I have only fought three times in the UFC. I haven’t fought necessarily anyone that’s great. Jose wasn’t horrible, but he wasn’t the best. But, you know, I believe in my skills, I have really good high-level skills. But it would obviously be a stupid fight for him, I’m not even ranked, so that would be stupid.”

While O’Malley remains realistic about where he currently stands in the 135lbs division, he named two fighters who deserve to challenge Cejudo for the title.

“I train because it makes me extremely confident that I can go out there and beat anyone in the division,” he said. “But realistically, who deserves a shot? Yeah, Aljo (Aljamain Sterling) or Cory [Sandhagen]. Those would be good fights.”

O’Malley, who remains undefeated in his professional MMA career, is fast becoming one of the most popular fighters on the UFC roster. In part because of his exciting fighting style. A fighting style that some fans have compared to a certain Conor McGregor.

“I get compared by some people, like I have a similar striking style to Conor, and I do in a sense, but I have way more tools than Conor. I have way more, and that’s not a knock on [Conor], Conor is a really, really high-level striker, obviously, what he has done is insane, you can’t do that without being as good as he is.

“But I feel like when you compare my striking, I have way more tools than him. As far as, I can stand literally in both stances and do everything from both stances, so I think that similarity is there a little bit. I don’t know, that’s tough, I feel like there has been anybody that can move like me and throw the stuff that I’m throwing from both stances,” he explained.

How do you think Sean O’Malley would fare against Henry Cejudo?

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