Sean O’Malley went into UFC 333 sounding pretty sure that a Petr Yan win in Abu Dhabi meant the next bantamweight title shot was his. Yan won. Then the broadcast swung its attention cageside to Song Yadong, and O’Malley’s name never came up. I think the UFC should keep it that way, at least for one fight.
The main event deserves a word first. Yan started slow against Merab Dvalishvili, the kind of early rounds that make you check your own scorecard twice. Then he turned it up in Round 3 and rode that shift to a clean 48-47 on all three cards. I’ll pause to enjoy a title fight where three judges watched the same fight and agreed on it, because that happens less often than it should. A fighter who starts behind and changes the fight from the middle rounds on is doing the hardest thing in the sport, and Yan did it against one of the most relentless bantamweights the division has had.
The broadcast made its pick
After Yan was announced, color commentator Daniel Cormier suggested Song, who was in attendance in Abu Dhabi, was the real No. 1 contender. MMA Mania pointed out that O’Malley went unmentioned. Commentary teams don’t book fights, but a UFC broadcast lingering on one contender in the building is about as close to a public hint as the promotion gets without a press release.
O’Malley’s case rests on 2022. He holds a split decision over Yan from that year, and it’s a controversial one, which on paper hands the UFC a ready-made rematch with a built-in argument. The trouble is that a disputed split cuts both ways. It’s a result Yan’s camp can wave off, and Yan didn’t sound like a man who’s been lying awake over it.
Speaking to MMA Fighting after the win, Yan kept the company line on matchmaking first: “I’m not the one to decide it, whoever is offered to me by UFC, by the promotion, is who I’m going to fight.” Then he took the gloves off. “But honestly, the UFC has already been trying to pull Sean O’Malley by his bootstraps since the very beginning, they’ve given him two free fights against the champ when it was Merab, right? They’ve raised this chicken to lay eggs for so long, they’re trying to squeeze as many eggs out of him as possible.”
That chicken line is going to follow O’Malley around for a while. Yan’s argument, stripped of the farm imagery, is that O’Malley has already cashed two title opportunities against Dvalishvili and that the UFC keeps finding reasons to put him back near the belt. You can disagree with the tone. The substance is a champion telling the promotion, politely and then not so politely, that he’s unimpressed by the case for a third.
Why Song makes sense
The obvious objection to Song is that Yan already beat him in 2024. Normally that makes a rematch harder to sell than O’Malley’s, since O’Malley at least owns the win. Yan addressed it head on. “From what I see, Song Yadong is way more well rounded now,” he said, before repeating that he doesn’t pick his opponents.
Think about what that means coming from the champion. Yan is saying the guy he beat has grown more than the guy who beat him. That’s a scouting report, and champions don’t usually volunteer compliments to a man they’d rather not fight. Rematches against improved fighters are the ones I want to see, because the first fight becomes a reference point. You get to watch what Song changed and whether Yan’s adjustments still work against it. A rematch built only on a disputed scorecard from 2022 gives you less to study.
Then there’s attendance, and I’m only half joking. MMA Mania noted that O’Malley stayed in Arizona instead of making the 16-hour trip to Abu Dhabi. Song was cageside and got the camera, the commentary mention and the champion’s endorsement in a single night. O’Malley got a line in somebody else’s article. If you want to be the next challenger, the cheapest move available is standing near the cage when the belt changes hands.
MMA Mania also floated a scenario where the UFC books Song for the title and sends O’Malley into a title eliminator against Payton Talbott. That’s speculation from the outlet, not a booking, and nothing official has been announced. As speculation goes, it’s the version I’d sign off on. O’Malley’s popularity means he never has to wait long, and a win over Talbott would answer Yan’s complaint about free title shots better than anything O’Malley could post online.
Give Song the shot. Let O’Malley earn the one after it, and if he beats Talbott, the 2022 split decision stops being an asterisk and turns into the opening bit of a fight worth selling.
