Sean O’Malley has finally released the footage that shows him seeming to stop UFC flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja in a 2016 sparring session.
The bantamweight champion was accused of being comfortably beaten during the pair’s training spar years before either had landed a spot in the UFC. But he has now shared a video that seems to clearly indicate he stopped Pantoja in what he claims was the first round.
O’Malley is one of the most fearsome strikers in MMA, and showed off a small taste of those skills in the short video, which was shared to social media today. But he has not opted to show off the entirety of their rounds together.
Sean O’Malley proves his case in Alexandre Pantoja sparring feud
The drama between O’Malley and Pantoja began before UFC 301 when the Brazilian claimed that he had “smashed” his rival in their spar. Instantly, the American and his coach Tim Welch both gave their own account of the session, which seems to be accurate.
O’Malley owns the footage of the session, and has threatened to release it previously. And this afternoon, he decided to do just that, letting fans see the pair go at it in their younger days in a brief clip days after revealing a short piece of footage where he landed a takedown.
The footage appears to show a young O’Malley, with his natural darker hair colour, throwing a kick to Pantoja’s liver, before the pair circle around the cage. But before he can throw anything more significant, the Brazilian indicates that they should take a break.
In a legitimate fight, calling for such a break would be an immediate TKO finish. However, it is believed that O’Malley allowed him to take a breather before they continued, and he has even admitted that in the third round he was submitted.
O’Malley captioned the video: “1st round Tko 2016. undefeated. Henry [Cejudo] in his corner he was crying.”
Alexandre Pantoja claims he ‘smashed’ Sean O’Malley in sparring session
In an interview with the New York Post Sports’ YouTube channel, Pantoja noted that the pair have “history” ahead of his bout with Steve Erceg at UFC 301. The flyweight champion was speaking about the unlikelihood that he would move up in weight, unless he had a particular issue with a bantamweight.
He then brought up the infamous sparring session, saying: “He said some bad things about that but that’s crazy because he recorded the sparring and at the end of training I said, ‘Hey send to me the video and then I can see our training’ and he never passed the training to me.
“I asked [his friend] ‘Can you talk with your friend for send the video’, and he said to me ‘Hey, he’s not gonna send to you bro, you smashed him.”
In a more recent appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Pantoja then added: “I see O’Malley post the video, and that’s so embarassing because he posted like 10 seconds of the sparring video…
“i”If you have the video, send the whole video not just your best moment. He wants to create something, let’s create that. He wants to fight with me I can fight with him, because I’m not afraid.”
Sean O’Malley denies Alexandre Pantoja’s claim about 2016 sparring session
O’Malley immediately went on the defensive, and eventually went as far as sharing a brief clip during a YouTube video that showed him taking down Pantoja with relative ease. Prior to that, he had replied to a tweet about the spar saying: “Twas a first round TKO.”
In a later episode of The BrO’Malley podcast, he went into further detail adding: “Does he want me to post it? I finished him in the first round. I can post that, I wasn’t going to bring it up, if that’s what he wants. That’s funny, I mean, does he forget how it played out?”
“I will say in the third round he choked me,” he admitted, although he then added that at the time he “was like 1-0 or 2-0 as a pro, he was coming off ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ making his UFC debut… I was f****** smoking joints the night before.”
Coach Tim Welch corroborates Sean O’Malley’s sparring story
Eventually, the story made its way to renowned former fighter and coach Tim Welch, who was with O’Malley at the time. He claims that the pair had been smoking marijuana around that time and that he was not in proper fight shape, but noted that the stoppage was legitimate.
Speaking on his stream, Welch recalled: “Henry wanted Pantoja to spar ‘Suga’ one round. Me and ‘Suga’ were probably taking bong rips the night before. We were snacking out, not really in fight camp at all. Going to sparring maybe to get a few rounds and Henry’s like, ‘Hey, you want to spar this guy?’
“So Sean says, ‘Yeah, I’ll spar him.’ They spar one round. Sean comes out off the rip, puts him down. Puts him down in the first minute. Now mind you this is, I don’t even remember what year this is, I don’t even think Sean was a professional yet, he might have been a professional just breaking in.
“So when you go from three-minute rounds as an amateur to five-minute rounds it’s a big jump and the pacing is different. Everything’s different, it’s way longer of a fight.
“Sean comes out there, bounces around, young buck. Boom, hits him with a liver shot, puts him down, Pantoja has to stop, he has to wave it off, he has to go over to Henry, kneel down, call it off. I mean there’s a video, never released video but he puts him down.”
Welch did later clarify that in an actual fight Pantoja would have almost certainly fought through the pain. However, he referenced previous O’Malley fights in which he stopped opponents who had taken similar shots and shown signs of slowing down.