Cory Sandhagen doesn’t think much of how Sean O’Malley goes about his business in the cage, and he believes fans should feel the same way.
Earlier this month, Sean O’Malley was booked to face Aiemann Zahabi on the UFC White House card in a bout that could determine the next title challenger.
The fight came as a bit of a surprise, though Zahabi’s seven-fight winning streak has put him in position to climb the ranks.
Fans were still hoping for a different matchup though, with many disappointed that ‘Suga’ Sean wasn’t paired up against Cory Sandhagen, who has been publicly pushing for that fight for a while now.
Sandhagen questions O’Malley’s willingness to face tougher competition
Sandhagen last fought in October, where he lost a unanimous decision to Merab Dvalishvili in a bantamweight title bout.
Since then, the 33-year-old has been pushing for a fight against the former champion. But O’Malley has repeatedly said that the offer was never formally presented to him.
Still, Sandhagen isn’t convinced. He feels O’Malley is intentionally steering clear of tougher matchups – a move he doesn’t respect and thinks fans shouldn’t either.
“It’s the only fight that makes sense for the both of us,” Sandhagen told Daniel Cormier during an interview.
“I hate the way that he answers questions all around in general and I hate the way he answers questions when he gets asked about me. Sean’s been on record for being like, ‘this is a business to me, I want to take the easiest fight for the most amount of money.’
O’Malley’s last outing saw him snap a two-fight skid against Dvalishvili with a victory over Song Yadong.
The plan was initially for ‘Suga’ Sean to jump straight back into another title shot against Petr Yan. However, it appears that Yan will be heading into his trilogy fight with Merab instead.
“I get to inspire a bunch of people because I know I took the hard road to get here, O’Malley is not like that,” Sandhagen said. “As a fan I can’t respect that.”
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