Sean O’Malley’s answer to the ducking accusation is simple: the offer Payton Talbott described never existed.
“I feel like he made it up,” O’Malley said, according to Sportskeeda, reacting to Talbott’s claim that he passed on a matchup at UFC Freedom 250, the card headed for the White House. Sherdog reported that O’Malley denied the UFC ever offered him the Talbott fight. The claim that O’Malley turned it down comes from Talbott alone, and nothing in the public record backs it up. Treat it as unproven.
This started on the night of October 3 at UFC 332, when Talbott beat Deiveson Figueiredo and grabbed the mic. “Sean O’Malley, you can’t run forever. Give the people what they want,” Talbott said, in a clip shared by Championship Rounds on X.
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O’Malley’s first response, also posted by Championship Rounds, leaned on his schedule: “4 out of last 7 fights have been against 3 of the greatest bantamweights of all time. Ain’t duckin no one.”
Henry Cejudo, who’s never met a feud he couldn’t throw gasoline on, sided with Talbott on X. “Nobody wants to fight Payton Talbott. He’s been ignored for a year. You have to give him the best competition and they need to stop protecting Sean O’Methly. Talbott vs O’Methly next sign the contract!!” Cejudo wrote.
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Now the part where I check the numbers. O’Malley is 20-3 and sits at No. 3 at bantamweight in the Knockout Daily rankings, with his last fight on June 14. Talbott is 12-1 and ranked No. 15. That’s a 12-spot gap, and fights across a gap like that tend to happen for one reason, which is that the lower guy is a better sales pitch than his number. Talbott has a case there. He came through Dana White’s Contender Series in 2023 and won his first three UFC fights, including a 19-second knockout of Yanis Ghemmouri at UFC 303 and two Performance of the Night bonuses. His only pro loss came against Raoni Barcelos at UFC 311 in January 2025, a fight where he got outwrestled for most of the night.
A win over Figueiredo, a former flyweight champion, is the biggest name on Talbott’s résumé. It earns him a step up. It doesn’t earn him a guy three spots from the title just because he asked loudly.
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If the UFC wants Talbott against O’Malley, it now has to put a real offer on paper, which would also settle who’s telling the truth about the last one.
