Cody Garbrandt says fight against Sean O’Malley is “looming”
The building rivalry between former UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt and rising star Sean O’Malley appears to be building closer to a meeting inside the UFC Octagon. This past month both Garbrandt and O’Malley both competed at UFC 269, with Garbrandt suffering a knockout loss to Kai Kara-France, and O’Malley getting a knockout victory of his own over Raulian Paiva in the first round.
During the lead-up to the event, Garbrandt and O’Malley had a brief exchange at the pre-fight press conference which led the two to square off during the conference. While they were held back by security and didn’t get too close to each other, that might all be changing soon according to Garbrandt.
Speaking on his Rollin with the Homies podcast, Cody Garbrandt was asked about what’s next for his future, and let it be known that a fight against Sean O’Malley is looming. Although he noted that he felt great fighting at 125 he understands that he has to decide which division he wants to fight in and the changes that need to be made.
“I felt great at 125. I think that’s something I have to decide, whether I [fight at] -35, 25, I feel great at both. I think if I went to 35, I would do things a little differently. Keep my weight up throughout the camp. There’s a lot of good matchups. Sean O’Malley, I really want to whoop his ass. That’s a fight that’s looming. Hopefully, that could possibly be my next one. I want that fight so I’d like to stay at 35.’
Having lost five of his last six fights has seen Cody Garbrandt take a big dip in his stock within the UFC, but as a former champion who puts on exciting fights win or lose, the desire to see him fight at the highest level is still there. While giving credit to O’Malley coming off his latest win, Grabrandt would go on to explain why he believes the fight can be made.
“He might fight me now because I’m not in the rankings at 35 and he’s ranked so that’ll be a good fight. You got to respect his skills, he leveled up a little bit with the Raulian figh, caught him early on, but we know that. The only way he was gonna win was catch him early on and he did that. He did his job, hats off to him. He’s now in the rankings so I have to back up to 35 and whoop his ass, but we’ll decide, we’ll figure it out.”
Although it seems Cody Garbrandt is set on making Sean O’Malley his next opponent, he’s also acknowledged that nothing has been officially decided on whether he’ll be competing at flyweight or bantamweight in his next fight. It’d be an entertaining fight between the two heated rivals, and one the UFC should not hesitate to make.
