UFC men’s bantamweight champion “Suga” Sean O’Malley avenged the only loss of his UFC career in the main event of UFC 299 on Saturday night in Miami.
O’Malley scored a lopsided unanimous-decision win (50-45×2, 50-44) over his nemesis Marlon Vera, badly outstriking the man who defeated him in August 2020.
While Vera had a handful of moments in the fight, it was O’Malley’s pinpoint striking that ruled the day and led to the champion’s first successful title defense.
According to ESPN stats, O’Malley landed more than twice the number of significant strikes at 186 to 90. He hurt Vera with a knee to the cheek in the second round and again with a big left hand in the fifth.
Vera did have the final parting shot as he landed a hard left hook to the body that badly hurt O’Malley seconds before the final horn in the fifth. Unfortunately for Vera, the shot landed too late to change the results.
After the fight, Vera didn’t even look like himself. His face was badly swollen and it appeared his nose was likely broken.
During O’Malley’s post-fight interview, he expressed the desire to move up to featherweight to challenge new champion Ilia Topuria in his home country of Spain. However, O’Malley also said he’d be willing to face Merab Dvalishvili (the No. 1 contender to his title), if it’s what the fans want.
Dvalishvili is on a 10-fight win streak in MMA including wins over Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo in his last three fights. It would seem unfair to keep him from a title opportunity and a chance to avenge his teammate Aljamain Sterling’s loss to O’Malley in 2023.
That said, a Topuria-O’Malley fight in Spain would be an insanely huge show in a new region for the UFC. Business may trump competitive structure in this instance.
In either case, O’Malley’s next fight figures to be an intriguing matchup.
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