BOSTON – Cory Sandhagen and Sean O'Malley are not on the same page mentality-wise.
O’Malley (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) challenges bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling (23-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 292 main event at TD Garden in Boston. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ABC/ESPN and early prelims on ESPN+.
If he becomes champion, O’Malley wants his first title defense to be against Marlon Vera, who handed him his lone-career loss in August 2020. Vera has to get past Pedro Munhoz on Saturday first, but with a few top contenders ahead of Vera, Sandhagen questions O’Malley’s approach.
“That’s some weak sauce, man,” Sandhagen told reporters, including MMA Junkie, during a media scrum. “You want to fight the guy that other people are beating? That kind of bothers me about the way O’Malley thinks a little bit.
“It’s not even just O’Malley. It’s the way that sometimes the sport is set up where it’s like take the easiest fight for the least amount of money. That’s going to ruin some stuff. Don’t you want to when you win the belt to say that you’re the actual best because you fought the best guys? That’s my approach.”
Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC), who’s coming off a dominant win over Rob Font, is currently sidelined due to elbow surgery. He positioned himself as a potential title contender, but doesn’t see himself fighting until the first quarter of 2024.
“If this (right arm) wasn’t hurt, I would be expecting to fight for a title at the end of the year against whoever it would be against, whether Sterling wins and leaves (the division for featherweight) or whether O’Malley wins and it’s against him,” Sandhagen said. “That would be what I would expect.
“Now I’m probably like eight months away from getting back into the cage. I’m six months from being like 100 percent healthy and then eight months from being able to fight. So I’m not going to think too far into it. I think there’s going to be this one this weekend, one more and maybe December, January and then maybe me. But I don’t know – we’ll see.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
