UFC light heavyweight and commentator Anthony Smith is impressed by bantamweight “Suga” Sean O’Malley. O’Malley’s striking skills and brash persona have made him a star, but Smith’s biggest praise was O’Malley’s strength in matchmaking, as he recently discussed on The Fighter vs The Writer.
“I think Sean O’Malley’s very smart with his matchmaking. I think that he’s very, very calculated, and I’m not saying this as a knock. I think more people maybe need to be better about doing that.
Anthony Smith Praises O’Malley Matchmaking
Maybe my path to fight anyone, any time, any place, maybe that’s not the greatest path to success in the end. It’s the biggest fight with biggest named guy for the most money that’s the easiest, and maybe that’s the path, I don’t know. I will tell you that there are a lot of guys that are ranked below Petr Yan that Sean O’Malley would have a tougher time with.”
Specifically, Anthony Smith discussed Sean O’Malley’s UFC 280 opponent, Petr Yan. Smith went against the grain of most predictions for the bout, pointing out how, stylistically, the fight could swing in Sean O’Malley’s favor.
“I think stylistically, Yan is a good matchup for a guy like Sean O’Malley. He’s shorter, he’s stockier, he’s got a really large reach disadvantage. I think the way that he fights favors the style of Sean O’Malley. There’s a world that exists where you can see Sean O’Malley getting over on Petr Yan.
Is that world as clear if it’s Cory Sandhagen? The path is not nearly as clear as with Petr Yan. That’s kind of my point. I think that he’s very smart. I think he’s getting an opportunity to skip a lot of people that are going to give him problems.” Anthony Smith went as far as to predict an O’Malley victory tomorrow night.
“If Petr Yan comes in, he’s mean, he’s angry, he lost his title, he’s trying to get back to it and he just starts walking him down and walking through all of his bulls***, it’s going to be a long night for Sean O’Malley, or a very short one.
I just have this feeling that Yan is going to get stuck on the outside. I don’t think that Sean O’Malley’s going to finish him. I don’t think there’s going to be anything crazy. Petr Yan’s going to have a tough time getting to him, and I think that Sean does a really good job of running people into s*** sometimes, and he was very similar in the Munhoz fight.
I think it’s going to be close like that. I don’t think it’s going to be as exciting as we all want it to be. I think it’s going to look very similar to the Pedro Munhoz fight where he’s just kind of on the outside, picking at him and I think the numbers are just going to add up. I am [going with Sean O’Malley].”
Is Anthony Smith right? Let us know in the comments.
