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Sean O'Malley is one of the UFC's current rising stars. He is a trash-talking, self-proclaimed future bantamweight champion. Due to his flashy style, brash personality, and open admission to fighting lower-ranked opponents for high pay, many sought to dismiss O'Malley's potential as a future bantamweight champion. His loss to Marlon 'Chito' Vera was especially damaging, convincing O'Malley's harshest critics that he wouldn't succeed as a top contender in one of the UFC's deepest divisions. Further attention was given to his apparent susceptibility to leg-related injuries.
Questions surrounding his durability have become commonplace, but the MMA Lab's resident star shouldn't be written off just as yet. Not only is his striking arsenal as deep as any fighter in the sport, but he also possesses vicious knockout power in a weight class not known to produce many hard-hitting strikers. The potential for a future championship win is there for Sean O'Malley, and this list examines the five main reasons why he might not only succeed in becoming a top bantamweight contender, but eventually capture the title.
#5. Sean O'Malley is the tallest bantamweight in the division
Historically, the tallest and largest fighters in a specific division have become its top contenders and champions. Not only is Sean O'Malley the tallest bantamweight in his division, but he also possesses a reach of 72 inches, which is identical to former interim welterweight champion Colby Covington. With some exceptions, the size of a fighter is a prominent factor in how well they will do in their respective weight classes. At heavyweight, the champion is Francis Ngannou, one of the larger fighters in the division.
At light heavyweight, the current champion is Jiri Procházka, who is also one of the largest fighters in his weight class. It is a common theme across all of the UFC's divisions, with Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman, and Charles Oliveira all being on the taller side of their divisions. Thus, with O'Malley being taller and longer than everyone else at bantamweight, his chances of being a champion are more than respectable.
#4. He uses his reach and height well
Stefan Struve is a cautionary tale of a fighter who is blessed with the height and reach to dictate the proceedings of every fight but has never developed any reliable means of taking advantage of these physical attributes. Sean O'Malley, on the other hand, is a different breed of fighter. Much like Jon Jones, O'Malley uses his height and length to set the range at which his bouts will take place. By standing at the range from which his strikes land but his opponent's strikes don't, Sean O'Malley ultimately dictates both his opponent's defensive and offensive striking.
By standing outside his opponent's reach, O'Malley causes them to either overextend to land, which draws them into his counter-punches, or they miss their strikes entirely, leaving them completely out of position and exposed to his combinations. Typically, to avoid overextending on a taller foe, fighters resort to using low kicks to briefly disrupt their opponent's stance, leaving them open to combinations over the top. This is effective because the leg is a fighter's longest weapon while their opponent's lead leg is always the closest target. This is also why body jabs are extremely effective against an opponent. It is the longest attack used by the arms, and the body or midsection is the closest upper-body target when a foe leans away.
But against Sean O'Malley, this is difficult to do because his massive height and reach advantage allows him to stand even beyond his opponent's kicking range while still allowing him to hit them. This causes his opponents to kick ahead of themselves. In doing so, they miss their kicks and expose themselves to counter-punches over the top. He disrupts their offensive and defensive striking because his opponents no longer know what a safe range to avoid his strikes from is.
#3. He has good distance management
Sean O'Malley is similar to Conor McGregor in that both are excellent at distance management. In earlier phases of his career, McGregor often used his lead hand to constantly reach out for his opponent's lead hand, pawing at it. He did so for two reasons. The first was to gauge the distance and determine how far his opponent often stands from him, giving him information on how to follow-up with his punches. The second reason was to trigger a fighter's natural instinct to control the space in front of them. It is human instinct to ward away any object that nears one's face.
In fighters, this is best expressed by their unconscious desire to hand-fight. By tricking his opponents into hand-fighting, McGregor could occupy their hands and even enable him to pull down his foe's lead hand and throw a straight left through the gap. Sean O'Malley follows a similar tactic, duping his foes into hand-fighting for the same purpose. Over time, his opponents give in to their frustrations and lash out every time Sean O'Malley sticks his lead hand that close to their face, suffocating the central space in front of them.
It causes his opponents to lunge forward and swing at his chin to push him back and regain some breathing room. When his opponents do so, Sean O'Malley simply uses his height and length to hop back, leaning away as his foe overextends before he uses his length to intercept them with pull-counters.
#2. He is a varied kicker
Most MMA fighters are not good kickers as the prominence of certain techniques and approaches to striking will vary depending on the era. As boxing in MMA has improved, fighters have gotten better at stepping in with the jab and extending their stance. This has rendered most fighters susceptible to low kicks, especially calf kicks as they are more difficult, but not impossible, to check. Thus, the focus on using calf kicks as counters to strong jabs by targeting the lead leg as an opponent extends their stance has led to a decline in kicking variety.
Sean O'Malley, though, is no such fighter. The variety of kicks he throws is impressive. Furthermore, he uses a few kicks to set up other kicks. As a rangy striker, O'Malley often uses low kicks and front kicks, both of which serve to punish opponents from the outside. His low kicks are hard and his front kicks stab his foes' midsections. The kicks deal enough damage that his opponents often drop their hands low to catch or parry the kicks. Once he's burned that reaction into his opponent's mind, Sean O'Malley lifts his thigh as if to throw either a low kick or a front kick before whipping his shin over the top for a high-kick.
If his opponents do not drop their hands low, O'Malley still uses his front kicks to set up high-kicks. The front kicks he throws cause his opponents to stand upright, leaving them in prime position for a high-kick to land.
#1. Feints & stance-switching
Sean O'Malley throws a wide range of feints. He feints with his hands, legs, and curiously, his head. In particular, he throws a lot of feints with his hands. In his viral knockout win over Eddie Wineland, for example, 'Sugar' set up his right cross brilliantly. He began the sequence standing in his southpaw stance, throwing a variety of strikes from his left side, including a long left hook and a left kick to the body. After establishing these threats from the left side of his body, O'Malley switched to his orthodox stance.
He followed this up with a spinning heel kick with his right leg, which missed as Wineland ducked under it. However, it didn't matter. Wineland didn't account for the change in alignment caused by O'Malley's new stance. For the entire fight, O'Malley baited Wineland with a feinted lead uppercut, causing his foe to drop his hands to block the uppercut. In the final instance, Sean O'Malley feinted the uppercut, and as Wineland's hands dropped in anticipation of the uppercut, O'Malley threw a right cross over the top.
The variety of strikes, feints, and constant stance-switching that Sean O'Malley uses overwhelms his opponents to the point where they overreact to feints even when he's not in range for his strikes to land. It causes his foes to react to every strike he throws, and has been a common theme with almost everyone he's fought.
