Sean O’Malley picked up the biggest and most significant win of his career at UFC 280 over the weekend. The 28-year-old bantamweight defeated former champion Petr Yan on the scorecards, which ultimately shot him ten spots up the 135-pound rankings to number one.
But because it was such a razor-thin decision, a chunk of fans believe he isn’t the rightful winner. For that, he issued a response via his YouTube channel.
“Woke up this morning, ranked No. 1 in the world! Shit ain’t photoshopped,” O’Malley said (quotes via MMA Fighting). “It does feel good. It’s crazy. If I would have lost that fight, people would put a lot more respect on my name.
“‘Damn, he lost but that motherf–r’s good.’ Now it’s like, ‘He won?! He won?! You’ve got to be shitting me!’ But the people that are mad that I won are the ones that said I was supposed to get whooped.
“Like, ‘Sean’s lucky it’s not five rounds.’ Well, my best round was my third round…”
O’Malley says all the hate directed at him is because of who he is, more than anything else.
“You wanted me to lose in the first place. A robbery? How is it [a robbery]? Third round, I won, second round, he won, first round was close as f–k and I did more damage. It’s not really a robbery, it was a close fight. A really, really close fight…
“If that was Cory [Sandhagen] vs. Petr or anyone else vs. Petr and they got the nod, I wonder how much the narrative would change. Like, ‘Yeah, I could see that.’ But since it’s me and people f–ng hate me because I’m 6’6”, 220, pure chocolate, and ranked No. 1 bantamweight in the f–ng world, bitch!”
Regardless of the disputes, O’Malley still walked away with an official win on his record, which improves to 16-1 (1 NC). He also took home a $50K bonus for Fight of the Night.