Sean O'Malley brings up Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan in bid to help Cory Sandhagen acquire "famous guy leverage"

Sean O'Malley responded to Cory Sandhagen's recent comments and mentioned Aljamain Sterling as well as Petr Yan in the process.

The current UFC bantamweight champion was responding to a clip of Sandhagen on The MMA Hour talking about how he needs famous guy leverage, hang out with rappers, and get tattoos on his face to advance his MMA career.

The retort from 'Sugar' retweeting the clip via his X account saw and stated:

"Face tat might help. KOing Aljo or Beating Peter might help also IDK"

O'Malley referred to the Yan win via split decision at UFC 280, which secured him his shot at the gold. 'Sugar' made good on his title bid by besting Sterling with a knockout in the second stanza at UFC 292, which saw him cement himself as the bantamweight champion in August, 2023.

Meanwhile, during his aforementioned appearance on The MMA Hour, Sandhagen said:

"Trying to acquire some famous guy leverage...Maybe I should start hanging out with some rappers... I'll get some tattoos on my face."

Check out the tweet with Sean O'Malley responding to Cory Sandhagen below:

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Sean O'Malley and backstory to the Sandhagen interaction

Cory Sandhagen is understandably making jokes about a situation where someone he recently defeated decisively will be facing Sean O'Malley next for the title.

Marlon 'Chito' Vera next fights O'Malley for the belt, with the latter only having lost once in MMA, and it was to the former. This rematch is set to transpire at UFC 299 in March, but Vera has previously fallen to Sandhagen.

Though he rebounded with a win against Pedro Munhoz, the fight before that saw Vera lose in fairly dominant fashion against Sandhagen in their UFC Fight Night headliner in March last year.

O'Malley seemed to take issue a bit with the subtext of what Sandhagen was saying, which serves as a jab at the champion and also calls into question the legitimacy of the challenger.

The 29-year-old has not tasted defeat across his last six, and O'Malley looks to avenge his lone mixed martial arts loss to extend that stretch to seven on March 9.

The Montana native is known for his multi-colored hair, his multitude of tattoos, and the fact he has hung out with several notorious rappers, which fueled the earlier barbs from Sandhagen toward O'Malley.