Sean O’Malley cemented his place as one of the biggest names in the UFC with his performance at UFC 299. ‘Sugar’ picked apart Marlon Vera in a way that no one has been able to do before him. He won on all the judges’ scorecards and defended his belt successfully for the first time. Following the win, O’Malley seems to have bigger plans in sight to further increase his stardom. These plans include the likes of Ilia Topuria, Ryan Garcia and now shockingly, Floyd Mayweather, following the footsteps of Conor McGregor.
After a victorious weekend, O’Malley joined Ariel Helwani on the MMA hour. During the interview, Helwani asked O’Malley if he was still interested in a potential boxing match against Ryan Garcia. In response, O’Malley said,
“I just think mentally that kid is not where he needs to be. We’ll see how it looks against Devin Haney. I feel an MMA fight is just so unrealistic, there is zero percent chance that he would ever even make it to that fight…Floyd’s still kicking. Floyd’s still running around the boxing room. If I keep going out there and doing what I’m doing, I might just skip Ryan. I might skip Gervonta and go straight to the big dog.”
In the buildup to UFC 299, both Garcia and O’Malley went back and forth multiple times on social media. Garcia stated that he was interested in fighting O’Malley. However, he wanted to do so in an octagon, as he believed a fight in the ring would not be competitive at all. ‘King’ also stated that he reached out to Dana White about the same, but did not share what Dana White replied about his idea. However, O’Malley has a bigger opponent in mind- Floyd Mayweather.
A closer look at Sean O’Malley’s ambitions against Floyd Mayweather
Dana White has stated multiple times that he is not a fan of MMA fighters going into boxing. He used the example of Francis Nnganou’s recent knockout to further cement his stance on the same. This unfortunately means that O’Malley’s plans of fighting Garcia might just be a pipe dream.
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To make things worse, Garcia’s recent actions and mental state have caused a great deal of concern among both fans and pundits. In addition to this, O’Malley called out arguably the biggest name in boxing in Floyd Mayweather. Unfortunately, ‘Money’ Mayweather’s last exhibition fight was against John Gotti III in June, 2023. Thus, it is unlikely that Mayweather returns to take on Sean O’Malley in boxing. There are just too many hurdles in the way for that fight to happen.
