Sean O’Malley has an answer for Payton Talbott, and it comes in two parts. First, he swore he never turned the fight down. Second, he cheerfully admitted he might pass on it anyway, if a better option is sitting on the table after UFC 333.
Speaking on The SuGuru Show, O’Malley went straight at the accusation Talbott has been pushing, that the two could have fought at UFC White House in June. “I don’t like bringing family into this, but I swear on my family I did not get offered Payton Talbott at the White House,” O’Malley said. He went further and suggested Talbott invented the story. “I feel like he made it up. I don’t think he ever got offered me,” he said, reasoning that the UFC would have come to him first as the A-side before ever pitching the matchup to Talbott.
Then came the part that’s getting the attention. O’Malley tied his next move to the bantamweight title trilogy between Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 333 on Oct. 24 in Abu Dhabi. “If Petr goes out there and loses, let’s squabble, me and Payton, let’s make it happen,” he said. “If Petr goes out there and wins, I’m ducking [Talbott] for a tougher fight. I’m ducking him for Petr Yan.”
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The logic is simple enough. O’Malley owns a split decision win over Yan, so a Yan title reign gives him a natural rematch. Dvalishvili has beaten him twice, which makes a third meeting a hard sell, even though O’Malley still insists he won the first one. He leaned on that claim again here, running through his recent résumé of Yan, Aljamain Sterling and Dvalishvili. “I ain’t ducking,” he said.
Where Talbott stands
Talbott earned the right to ask. At UFC 332 in Salt Lake City, the 28-year-old knocked out former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo in 129 seconds, his second straight win over a former UFC champion after beating Henry Cejudo. He grabbed the microphone afterward and went right at O’Malley. “Sean O’Malley, you can’t run forever. Give the people what they want,” Talbott said, according to a clip posted by Championship Rounds on X.
O’Malley’s sharpest jab was about who Talbott has been beating. Figueiredo and Cejudo both held gold at 125 pounds and are smaller and older than Talbott. “Why would I fight this f*cking tall, lanky, good striker, when I can fight Petr Yan?” O’Malley asked, before conceding that Talbott is fighting whoever the UFC offers him. “These are the guys he’s getting offered, it’s not his fault.”
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There was real warmth in it, too. O’Malley said he remembered watching Talbott on the Contender Series and figuring they’d cross paths someday, and he called the callout free publicity at a moment when he hadn’t been in the media much. “This is what you want in the sport,” he said.
My take: O’Malley is right about the matchup math and wrong to sound so relaxed about it. Talbott’s two biggest wins came against legends moving up from flyweight, and neither tells you much about how he handles a long, rangy striker in his own prime. That’s precisely why the fight is worth making. If Dvalishvili retains on Oct. 24, O’Malley has already said yes on the record, and I’d hold him to it before anyone talks him into a Sandhagen detour or another wait for a title shot.
