Sean O’Malley questions Cory Sandhagen accepting fight with Umar Nurmagomedov
UFC bantamweight title challenger Sean O’Malley questioned why Cory Sandhagen felt comfortable accepting a fight with Umar Nurmagomedov.
O’Malley takes on the champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 in August. Earlier in that month, Sandhagen returns to the cage when he faces off against the undefeated prospect Nurmagomedov. Despite Sandhagen being one of the top-five ranked fighters in the weight class, he felt comfortable accepting the fight against someone ranked lower in the top 15. Sandhagen’s reasoning for this has been that, if he is the best bantamweight in the world like he believes he is, then he should be able to fight and defeat anyone in his weight class, so he accepted the fight against Nurmagomedov.
Speaking on the Timbo Sugar Show podcast, O’Malley questioned why Sandhagen took the fight with Nurmagomedov. That being said, he also thinks that it was a pretty “gangster” move to fight someone that nobody else seems to be.
“It depends. Businessman-wise? Not smart. If you look at it like that’s gangster, it’s definitely gangster. What does Chael (Sonnen) say? Fight the worst guy for the most amount of money,” O’Malley said (via MMAjunkie.com). “He’s doing the opposite. He’s fighting not for a lot of money and fighting the best guy. So in that sense, he’s f*cking not smart, but it’s gangster. I think it’s gangster he’s fighting Umar.”
O’Malley will get the next crack at Sterling and his belt, and there is a good chance that the winner of that bout will be fighting the winner of Sandhagen vs. Nurmagomedov next, depending on how that fight goes. Of course, there is also another important bantamweight bout between Henry Cejudo and Marlon Vera that is set to take place, so there are several different paths the future of the bantamweight division can take depending on how these August fights go.
Do you agree with the take from Sean O’Malley in this particular situation?
