“UFC Without the Suga Show”: Sean O’Malley Stepping Away From the Octagon After Merab Loss

Say goodbye to the Suga Show UFC fans for the former champ is taking a sabbatical. UFC 306 was not a night to remember for Sean O’Malley as he lost his belt via unanimous decision. ‘Suga’ looked like he was trying to survive for 25 minutes instead of trying to win and retain his bantamweight title.

His subpar performance gave the Georgian the opportunity to dominate almost the entire fight. Following the fight, ‘Suga’ has made a big decision regarding his career. It is the kind of decision we’ve seen former champions make multiple times after career defining losses, like former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, after losing the title to Sean Strickland.

In a recent episode of the TimboSugarShow on YouTube, O’Malley told his fans that he wanted to stay out of fighting for a out 9-10 months, maybe a year.

“I probably won’t fight for 9 months, 10 months. Maybe a year. It’s gonna be a while. People are gonna have to watch the UFC without the Suga Show for a little bit.”

As sad as this is for O’Malley’s fans, it also means that the bantamweight division has now really opened up with the likes of Umar Nurmagomedov and Deiveson Figueiredo looking to challenge the newly crowned champion, Merab Dvalishvili.

Now, while ‘Suga’ is indeed stepping away from the octagon for sometime, he has tweeted about having won 2 out of the last 3 rounds.

O’Malley wants bantamweight title loss overturned

After what he said about taking a break from the sport, and about his performance, there’s no doubt that his tweet was mostly a troll.

“Suga State athletic commission BREAKING NEWS Suga won 2 of the last 3 rounds!! Fight Over turned. Suga won!”

 

Suga State athletic commission BREAKING NEWS
Suga won 2 of the last 3 rounds!!
Fight Over turned. Suga won!

— Sean O’Malley (@SugaSeanMMA) September 16, 2024

However, it might have gotten lost in translation since he got trolled for it mercilessly.

Regardless, it seems O’Malley is still coping with the loss. It was a good run that saw him win the bantamweight title and defend it,  unfortunately he couldn’t do it more than once.

For a time during his reign, it looked as though ‘Suga’ just kept getting better every fight. However, the pressure of having the belt and not wanting to lose it probably made him fight very safe, which ultimately led to him losing.

Usually, when ‘Suga’ smells blood, he is relentless, he goes in for the kill using his speed and accuracy. However, throughout the fight he hurt his opponent a number of times, but never pursued it.

Instead, he held back and just circled Dvalishvili for the fear of being taken down and that led to his doom.