Throughout his UFC career, Sean O’Malley has continuously drawn comparisons to Conor McGregor.
When Sean O’Malley emerged onto the scene in the UFC, he was often compared to Conor McGregor because of his personality and exuding confidence.
And then when he won the UFC bantamweight title at UFC 292 in 2023, he was widely regarded as the next big star in the sport.
Despite that, ‘Suga’s’ title reign didn’t last very long and he was dethroned by Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306, subsequently losing his rematch against him earlier this year at UFC 316.
O’Malley blames ‘wanting to be Conor McGregor too much’ on recent downfall
Throughout his career, O’Malley has always made it clear that he has looked up to ‘The Notorious’ Irishman because of his past achievements in the sport.
And the two have always had a mutual respect for each other, up until last year when they got involved in a bizarre feud with each other, which resulted in them going at each other on social media.
Having looked up to the former double champion for the majority of his career, O’Malley made a recent admission that wanting to be McGregor too much led to his downfall in the sport.
“100% (I used McGregor as a role model), the way he carried himself into fights, the confidence, his confidence to say what he thought was gonna happen, ‘I’m gonna knock this dude out in round two’, I got a lot out of that,” O’Malley told The MMA Lab.
“I was like, ‘Okay, I can be confident like that,’ I feel like I got lost almost in a sense where I wanted to be like Conor too much instead of being myself.
“I would say the first Merab fight, it was my second title defence and I was like, I want this to be big, I didn’t feel like it was big, I didn’t feel like Merab was a big name, I had to force it, it was at the Sphere, I felt like I had to create something and I didn’t like how that made me feel… I made that one too personal… I think that was the only time I’ve ever forced anything,” O’Malley continued.
What’s next for Sean O’Malley?
O’Malley is in somewhat of a difficult position in the bantamweight division as he has already lost to the current champion twice, making it very unlikely for him to earn another title shot while Dvalishvili is the champion.
Despite that, the 30-year-old believes there are still fights for him to have in the division, before he makes his planned move up to featherweight.