Ahead of his long-awaited bantamweight title fight against Merab Dvalishvili, UFC champion ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley is making some big plans for 2025 and beyond – one that ends with a second belt and boxing against one of two superstars.
Whilst overlooking a cardio ‘Machine’ like Merab Dvalishvili is never something that you’d recommend, it’s hard to argue that Sean O’Malley’s enormous fight plans for the next few years aren’t well within his grasp.
Sean O’Malley sets his sights on second UFC belt and ‘big boxing fight’
Since his dominant unanimous decision win over Marlon Vera earlier this year, bantamweight champion ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley has been preparing for a long-awaited clash with Georgian wrestler Merab Dvalishvili.
Yet even with that title fight scheduled to go down in just a few weeks’ time at UFC 306 at The Sphere, O’Malley is still plotting out his future title aspirations; and even a successful foray into the world of professional boxing.
Speaking on the latest episode of DeepCut with VicBlends, O’Malley shared how after finishing Dvalishvili in impressive style on September 14, he’ll move up to 145lbs and fight the winner of the upcoming featherweight title bout.
“I beat Merab, knock him out viciously but land a couple extra shots before the ref can get in and then Ilia [Topuria] and Max [Holloway] fight, and I fight the winner of whoever wins that.
“If Max wins then he’s the 145 champ and BMF, if Ilia wins then he’s 145 champ and BMF so [me] moving up would be a massive fight for the company.”
That title fight is scheduled for October 26 and will be the main event of UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi.
After capturing a second title in what would be his 14th fight in the promotion, O’Malley says that he would have earned his chance to follow the likes of Conor McGregor in getting an enormous crossover boxing match – and Suga already has two big names in mind.
“I want to get a big boxing fight – I want Gervonta Davis, I want Ryan Garcia, but I got to earn that big boxing fight… The way I do that is going up a weight class, knocking one of those guys out and they can’t deny me a boxing fight – if I go out there and knock Merab out, knock Ilia out or Max out, like you can’t deny that.
“People hate when I bring up boxing, they hate it and I’m fine with that but if I do that, you’ve got to give it to me… You’ve got to say ‘Okay, you get that [chance], so that’s kind of where my head is at.”
Sean O’Malley breaks down UFC 305: DDP vs Adesanya
Whilst O’Malley vs Dvalishvili will be the talk of the town in September, there’s a huge title fight also going down in Australia this weekend when Dricus Du Plessis faces Israel Adesanya for the middleweight belt.
On the latest episode of the TimboSugarShow podcast, which dropped earlier in the week, O’Malley would offer his opinion on the main event going down under in Perth.
“DDP is the champ going into this fight. It’s weird [because] it almost changes your perspective cause three years maybe DDP is challenging Izzy for the belt, and I think Izzy probably will beat him, but things change.
“Sean Strickland vs DDP was a close fight, but Sean vs Izzy wasn’t necessarily a close fight; Adesanya has had an insane amount of fights in an insanely short amount of time – now he’s had a good long break.”
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Heading into UFC 305, Adesanya is the slight betting favorite over the South African, although those lines have been getting closer and closer as the fight looms over the horizon.
“So, yeah that’s an interesting fight man… DDP fixed the nose, Izzy coming off a loss, I like both guys – it’s an interesting fight.”