Ex-UFC Champ Kamaru Usman Advises Sean O’Malley to Stay Focused on UFC and ‘Not Entertain Gimmick Match’ With Ryan Garcia

With Devin Haney defeated for the first time in his career, Ryan Garcia has opened a pandora’s box full of speculations, creating a buzz in the fighting community. Amidst the back and forth between Garcia and UFC’s bantamweight king Sean O’Malley, ‘The Flash’ has yet again called out ‘Suga Sean.’ With all this brewing in the background, ex-UFC champion Kamaru Usman has a bold message for the 29-year-old from Montana.

Usman recently appeared on his popular YouTube weekly – Pound for Pound with Kamaru and Henry – alongside O’Malley‘s arch nemesis, Henry Cejudo.

Reflecting on the callout, Usman advised the bantamweight to focus on UFC. the former champion asked O’Malley to solidify his legacy in the division instead of taking up a crossover match. He said,

“Why are we even entertaining this right now? Sean O’Malley has a whole like, literally one of the deepest divisions to eve get through. You have one of the deepest divisions of contenders waiting for you why are we entertaining you going here and there to fight this guy? How about we beat up a couple of guys in my division first and cement myself as a you know a great in my division. Cement myself first before, I’m even entertaining these gimmick fights.” 

In all honesty, Usman has a point here. Instead of prioritizing million-dollar fights, O’Malley needs to clean out his division first. ‘Suga’ needs to prove to the community that he is the best, better than Petr Yan, Merab Dvalishvili, Umar Nurmagomedov, etc, and up his stocks. This way, the MMA star will have the momentum and the fans behind him to take on the boxing phenom.

Shifting his focus to Ryan Garcia, “The Nigerian Nightmare” even gave Garcia a tip or two on whom to take on next before he gets the crossover fight.

Usman offers a “logical option” to Garcia and asks him to make weight and run it back again with Haney

In essence, the fight world is abuzz with all the new developments. Especially after Garcia’s massive upset against Haney. However, there’s one problem though: in their 12-round boxing match, Garcia missed weight by a huge margin. 3.2 pounds, to be precise, and that is something to nitpick on.

As per Usman, Garcia needs to run it back again with Haney while he makes the weight to take the belt. The 25-year-old can then get a super fight with Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and avenge his loss before he moves to a possible crossover fight with Sean O’Malley. Speaking of which, Kamaru came out boldly and said, “I’m not entertaining this fight right now.”