Ahead of his return at UFC 316, Sean O’Malley has already laid out his plans for the future once his own career has come and gone. And it involves an admirable decision to help future fighters achieve their own dreams.
O’Malley, a former undisputed bantamweight champion, will look to regain that crown next weekend in the main event of UFC 316. Sidelined since September of last year, after suffering a decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili in the main event of UFC Noche, O’Malley has revamped his approach to the sport and life in general.
Seeing head coach, Tim Welch trade his career in the Octagon to help train him to bantamweight spoils, O’Malley has formed a tight-knit team with The Ultimate Fighter alum since his career began.
And, hoping to repay the favor and follow in the footsteps of Welch, and more so, former lightweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, O’Malley has laid out plans after his eventual retirement from combat sports.
While not promising retirement as of yet, O’Malley has claimed he would likely become a head coach when his fighting career is over — in a bid to “help” prospective fighters join the UFC and land their own championship spoils.
“I wanna fight as long as I can,” O’Malley said in a segment on UFC 316: Countdown.
“As long as my body holds up, I wanna make that walk to the Octagon. But the next chapter in life; for me to be able to say when I’m done fighting. I wanna continue to help these guys [other fighters] coming up. It’s very important. And it’s exciting,” he promised.
And a sponge for information as a student, O’Malley will likely make a rather competent head coach. But he will certainly have to go a long way to repeat the success found by someone like Nurmagomedov.
Khabib’s rise as a head coach
Calling time on his 29-0 unbeaten career back in 2020, Nurmagomedov almost immediately transitioned to coaching at his long-time American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose.
His first goal was to fulfill his father, the late Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov’s promise of making Islam Makhachev the UFC lightweight champion.
Khabib was in Islam’s corner when the Makhachkala native defeated the incumbent Charles Oliveira at UFC 280. Khabib would take a small break from coaching to focus on his family, but would eventually return to Islam’s corner once again at UFC 302 for his fight against the veteran Dustin Poirier.
Cut to 2025, he has completely taken over his father’s role as the head coach of the Dagestani camp, and when in the USA, Khabib also aids Javier Mendez in his coaching duties at the American Kickboxing Academy.
Together, they also train his cousin, Usman Nurmagomedov, who is currently the lightweight champion at PFL.
This is not to say that the Dagetsani camp isn’t without its share of failures.
Falling short at UFC 311 at the beginning of the year, Umar became the first Nurmagomedov to get unstuck in their combined professional combat sports career.
However, the scion is expected to rise up in the ranks soon, with a comeback aimed for October this year. Notably, Umar is also expected to fight for the bantamweight title before long.
Coincidentally, the defeat came against O’Malley’s soon-to-be rematch opponent, Dvalishvili, in January in a one-sided unanimous decision loss.
