Sean O’Malley feels that Cody Garbrandt doesn’t want to fight him.
The rising prospect is set to take on Marlon Vera at UFC 250 this weekend; however, the bantamweight is still aiming to fight Cody Garbrandt sometime in the future. The Problem? Garbrandt isn’t interested in facing O’Malley until he starts to beat top bantamweights and the 29-year-old is currently set to fight Deiveson Figueiredo for the UFC Flyweight belt.
But in O’Malley’s mind, Cody won’t step into the octagon against him because he’s afraid of getting knocked out by the rising UFC star:
“I don’t think he wants to fight me,” O’Malley told MMA Fighting when asked about Garbrandt. “I might be a little biased … I don’t think Cody wants to fight me. I think he sees that fight, I’m long, I’m tall, I’m accurate, I throw straight punches, he throws hooks. He’s 5’3.” I’m 6’4.” He don’t want that fight.”
Despite Garbrandt not having interest in fighting the young UFC star right now, O’Malley believes that he’s gotten into the former UFC Bantamweight Champion’s head:
“I think I’ve been in his head,” O’Malley said. “I think he probably watched my fight with Jose Quinonez because we didn’t have any beef back then but I bet he was thinking ‘I’m going to avoid that fight’ back then.Then I knock out Eddie [Wineland] and he knocks out [Raphael] Assuncao but like I said, I think I said it on a podcast the other day, I respect Cody a lot. He got knocked out not once, not twice, he got knocked out three times in a row and then he comes back and fights a tough guy like Assuncao and he got the job done.”
While O’Malley does have respect for the UFC veteran, he believes that he has the skill set to beat Cody Garbrandt:
“There’s respect there 100 percent but I just think my skillset versus his skillset, I beat him,” O’Malley said. “That’s what it comes down to and obviously not afraid to express how I feel about that fight. He’s just getting hot headed, and obviously if someone talks crap, he’s going to talk crap back. It just worked out good.”