Sean O’Malley and Israel Adesanya are pretty similar. Two pure strikers, who also love showboating and are superstars in their own right. Both have tattoos, both love talking trash to their fans, so it only makes sense that they linked up and dropped a podcast episode together. That’s when all the similarities began making sense.
The pair spoke about everything from sports psychology to cold walkouts. ‘Suga’ had to bring up Adesanya’s walkout before his fight against Robert Whittaker. The Kiwi hired a small unit of dancers, and at UFC 243, before walking up to the octagon, he performed a short choreography with them.
The inner showman in O’Malley peaked when he watched that happen, and he told ‘Izzy’ about wishing he could pull something like that as well.
“One of the hardest walkouts of all time, I think it was Robert Whittaker, when you did the dancing. Bro, that s*it, I’ve always wished I could dance, and I can’t f*cking dance,” O’Malley admitted.
Israel Adesanya just changed the walkout game @stylebender #UFC243 pic.twitter.com/fyj6zHuqCd
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) October 6, 2019
Tim Welch, Suga’s trainer, burst out laughing when he heard O’Malley talk about his dancing. But Adesanya was adamant that it was just harder than it looked, and O’Malley could easily do it.
“Bro, trust me, two minutes, I’ll show you two steps, like it’s easy. You’re a copycat ninja as well,” the former UFC middleweight champion suggested.
However, it turns out O’Malley has had some previous experience with dancing.
Tim Welch exposes Sean O’Malley’s dance lesson
Welch has been with ‘Suga‘ Sean since forever, and he always travels with him, parties with him. It is one of the most unique fighter-coach relationships in the UFC. The pair is more like two best friends than a fighter and a coach, and it’s refreshing for fans to see.
So when Adesanya spoke about teaching O’Malley how to dance, Welch immediately remembered a time when they actually hired someone to do it, “We hired this like big, heavyweight choreographer chick to teach us. It made us comfortable.”
Sean O’Malley showed off some dance moves on the leg that was injured at #UFC252 (via @SugaSeanMMA) pic.twitter.com/lPygXSe5pU
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 20, 2020
Safe to say the session didn’t go too well, because O’Malley was eager to change the topic and immediately started talking as Welch kept snickering on the mic. Hopefully, ‘The Last Stylebender’ will be able to teach the former champ a thing or two about dancing.
Even if he does learn to dance, though, he won’t have anywhere to upload it since he is off all social media in preparation for his rematch against Merab Dvalishvili next weekend.
For now, all the focus is on winning his belt back; all the showboating, along with the weed and other antics, have been put to the side.
