Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

In July 2017, Dana White’s Contender Series had just started, ostensibly so the balding tomato-colored Czar of the UFC could establish a conveyor belt of low-cost fighters to fill its already inflated schedule of Fight Nights. In the second week of the inaugural season, the UFC’s most underappreciated broadcasting talent Laura Sanko interviewed White while the five winners anxiously sat on a backroom countertop like a group of unruly teenagers waiting to be reprimanded. 

“I’m looking for exciting, I’m looking for flashy, I’m looking for somebody who has that thing,” said White, characteristically stammering while trying to put together a coherent sentence not laced with expletives.  

“What is that thing?” asked Sanko, prompting White to gush about the fighter everyone knew was about to be awarded a bargain-barrel UFC contract.

“Sean O’Malley is that thing. I like this kid. I like everything about him. I like his fighting style and… he’s the guy,” answered White. 

Considering the context and what can easily be seen as disproportionate attention given to a fighter only two years and eight fights into his professional career at the time, it was natural for many entrenched MMA fans’ gag reflexes to be triggered.

Fast forward five years, “Suga” Sean O’Malley has collected a handful of wins, a number next to his name, and a disgusting glut of colors and tacky apparel plastered with marijuana leaves. The circumstances of his entry into the UFC’s bantamweight division were enough to earn him a sizable group of detractors. Then, the increased exposure to his persona paired with an above-baseline level of controversy and weirdness in the cage has made O’Malley even more polarizing. 

After just five years with the premiere MMA promotion, O’Malley has already compiled quite the list of bizarities and injuries, both inside and outside of the cage:

March 3, 2017 - O’Malley Injured his foot in the third round against Andre Soukhamthath, leaving him hopping on one leg

September 30, 2018 - It was revealed that O’Malley failed a USADA test for ostarine, which canceled his fight with José Alberto Quiñónez

October 25, 2018 - O’Malley announced that he would be undergoing hip surgery while waiting for his anti-doping violations to be sorted out.

June 21, 2019 - He failed a NSAC anti-doping test, again for ostarine, which resulted in a six-month suspension and cancellation of his fight with Marlon Vera.

August 15, 2020 - He sustained another in-fight foot related injury against Marlon Vera.

March 27, 2021 - O’Malley botched a walk-away KO in the first round of his fight with Thomas Almeida.

July 10, 2021 - Months after fighting late-notice replacement Kris Moutinho, O’Malley shared that he was still suffering from a damaged knuckle.

December 11, 2021 - O’Malley revealed after his fight with Raulian Paiva that he had to fight with a debilitating rib injury received in training. He also received a post-fight medical suspension due to another hand injury.

July 2, 2022 - O’Malley opponent Pedro Munhoz was unable to continue after an accidental eye poke.

It’s clear that O’Malley has a propensity for injuries, but that’s not a substantial enough reason to stir disapproval among fans. Still, whether it’s the denial of his loss to Marlon Vera, his accusations of cowardice directed at Pedro Munhoz, or most recently his association with Andrew Tate, justifications for disliking him are readily available.

All of this makes the task of evaluating Sean O’Malley from a strictly technical standpoint more difficult. In reality, every analyst is a fan (or at least a lapsed one) and is therefore subject to the same kinds of biases as everyone else. However, an honest attempt can be made by choosing to revisit and study the tape with the benefit of hindsight. This gap of time lets the dust settle and allows an emotional detachment that is necessary for a fair appraisal.

This part-by-part evaluation of Sean O’Malley’s game begins with his footwork, which is a curious case of being both an area of immense strength and also of encumbering weakness. That is why it is always more useful to focus on specifics instead of making broad claims like “O’Malley has bad footwork.” Sure, some principles apply to all categories of footwork, like don’t cross your feet (unless you know what you’re doing, e.g. directly stepping across yourself to cut the ring/cage more effectively), but it is often the case that a fighter can have good fundamentals in certain contexts but then regularly get tripped up in others.

O’Malley demonstrates a real aptitude for finding powerful offensive angles. There are two primary ways through which he achieves these advantageous positions: shifting from southpaw into orthodox during combinations or quick hop-steps after his initial strike lands.

Sean O’Malley uses shifting footwork and quick hop steps to get around his opponents into positions that make it more difficult for them to defend.

However, as you can tell from the clips above, these movements consist of big, committed steps, therefore requiring lots of space, making it imperative for O’Malley to do all he can to maintain the center of the cage. Unfortunately, even though O’Malley tries to play the role of the matador against opponents with a determination to move forward, he often concedes the space he needs to work his offense in the first place.

Standing your ground is hard, especially in MMA, where the vast number of possible attacks makes it difficult to be ready with a specific defensive move like a block, parry, or slip. Many fighters, therefore, allow distance and footwork to be their primary defense, and O’Malley is no different. But if the go-to response is to retreat when faced with a pressuring opponent, that means getting run into the fence at some point. Good lateral movement is of utmost importance for fighters looking to insulate themselves with long distances, and unfortunately, this is where O’Malley appears to be lacking.

O’Malley often makes the critical error of turning his back and jogging away from his opponent when he needs to move laterally. Furthermore, his lack of discipline to stay in stance while moving makes him more vulnerable in these situations and even causes him to get tripped up while trying to escape.

O’Malley often turns his back to his opponent and jogs away rather than using controlled footwork movements like pivoting. 

Some might look at these clips and struggle to see the problem. “He got away and barely took any damage. What’s the big deal?” Consider first that Kris Moutinho and Andre Soukhamthath are not clever or adept pressure fighters, so getting put in these positions is concerning. Then also look at these examples where offensively potent fighters have punished those who turn their back while trying to escape.

Charles Oliveira and Adrian Yanez provide just two examples among many where turning and running along the fence proved to be a catastrophic error.

If you are a Sean O’Malley fan and have made it this far, you might be questioning whether the title of this article is accurate. No, this is not an O’Malley hit piece. There are numerous more aspects of O’Malley that deserve praise. But, keep in mind how important it is for O’Malley to facilitate his strengths with tighter, more disciplined footwork that would allow him to stay at the range where he is most dangerous.

Before looking at the specifics of O’Malley’s boxing, it’s important to note that he is incredibly fast. In general, O’Malley is a gifted athlete, has a great sense of timing, and he’s huge for the division, all of which he seeks to weaponize in his style.

As a fast yet long fighter, O’Malley incorporates stinging jabs from orthodox and southpaw to draw opponents into a fencing match. Given that he uses distance as his preferred defense, he often keeps his hands low and launches his jab below his opponent’s line of sight to make it more difficult to anticipate (called the “up jab”).

O’Malley pesters opponents with jabs from both stances, covering his retreats with an obstacle that makes pursuing him both more difficult and more dangerous

Along with his jab, he uses his lead hand to engage in hand fights, grabbing or pawing at his opponent’s lead hand. He uses this tactic to make it harder for opponents looking to counter his lateral movement and entries with intercepting jabs and check hooks. He also manipulates his opponent’s guard and distracts them from his lightning-fast rear straights.

O’Malley’s propensity for switching between stances allows him to always be able to look for the lead hand fight in the open stance, which he uses to cover his movement and set up offense.

All of this works to amplify one of the most potent parts of his game: feints. Of course, speed plays a part, forcing opponents to respect everything that looks like a punch. He starts nearly every round with a heavy dose of feinting, which only works when he starts to mix in actual strikes that force his opponent to determine the legitimacy of everything. When people think of O’Malley as a dynamite hitter, they're probably thinking of moments where he either feinted out a response from his opponent and punished them for it or created a smokescreen that prevented them from seeing the real damaging shot.

Feints are an integral part of O’Malley’s game that have contributed to most of his highlight reel knockouts. His speed ups the ante, making both being overly responsive or unresponsive dangerous.

While you can find instances where O’Malley will engage in the pocket, he typically avoids it. That means there isn’t a lot of footage available to gauge his boxing defense up close. However, the few examples we have where he relied on his head movement prove illustrative. As in other areas of his game, O’Malley favors flashy moves that can be eye-catching but also prove less reliable and more exhausting than more fundamental approaches to defense.

O’Malley tries to avoid situations where he has to utilize head movement, but when he is forced to he typically relies on big exaggerated movements.

Outside of the energy expenditure, another issue with the type of movements highlighted above is that they can be timed and exploited by clever opponents.

Marlon Vera demonstrated the danger of predictable and embellished defensive movements.

There’s some perception of O’Malley as a venomous counterpuncher, perhaps predicated on ill-advised comparisons to his fellow loud-mouthed tattooed fighter, Conor McGregor. In actuality, O’Malley rarely lands any significant counters unless he is the one with the initiative. That is, if he feints out the specific response he wants, he can then counter it. But, if his opponent initiates the exchange, it is less likely that O’Malley will respond with a defensive movement and counterstrike.

There are only a few examples of O’Malley countering opponents who initiate exchanges. Typically, if O’Malley is countering, it’s because he has drawn out the response he’s looking for with feints.

Given that O’Malley prefers to work at long range, it’s no surprise that his preferred way of maintaining offensive volume at range is through his kicks. His speed is not as apparent in his kicks, but he seems to land with more force than his frame would imply. Earlier in his UFC career, O’Malley leaned mostly on low round-kicks, but against Kris Moutinho, an opponent hellbent on pressing forward, he relied on front kicks to create space and rack up attrition.

O’Malley depends on his kicks to wear opponents out at range.

O’Malley is not content to be a fighter who wins on attritional damage. Even his kicks layer into his boxing, feints, and movement in an attempt to build to something dramatic. If he gets the individual parts of his game going, he starts punching off kicks, kicking off punches, and mixing up the level of his attacks.

It’s not all low kicks and front kicks for O’Malley. His goal is always to set up a big, highlight reel finish and if he’s given the opportunity to work his kicks and punches together, he usually finds what he’s looking for.

However, O’Malley doesn’t seem to respond well to getting his legs kicked. Regardless of how you feel about the cause of his injury against Marlon Vera or the number of kicks he checked against Pedro Munhoz, O’Malley is still regularly kicked out of stance or off balance by his opponents’ kicks. Of course, being a lanky fighter for the division doesn’t help, but given O’Malley’s need for space and movement to establish his offense, even a slight vulnerability is exploitable.

Given the in-fight injuries sustained against Andre Soukhamthath and Marlon Vera, O’Malley’s vulnerability to low kicks is perhaps more concerning than it would be for others with more durable bones.

O’Malley’s response to low kicks is not a one-sided story, though. His harshest critics claim that his brittle ankles could never withstand a steady diet of low kicks. His apologists claim that he checked every single kick against Pedro Munhoz. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Technically, O’Malley is not a great kick defender because his checks can still leave vulnerable parts of the leg at least partially available. Still, frequently he has good reactions and can move his leg out of the way.

O’Malley’s best defense against kicks is to just retract his leg or shift stances to avoid the kick altogether, but he regularly finds a way to take at least some of the steam off low kicks.

Another important aspect of O’Malley’s kicking game is his spinning attacks. Not because they are instrumental to his success but because they tell us what kind of fighter O’Malley wants to be and what he prioritizes. O’Malley has a fast spinning back kick, but his other spinning kicks either lead to a big miss or a glancing blow. When O’Malley has his opponent hurt, he tries to land a big spinning kick, no doubt because he’s looking to create a viral clip for social media. However, it was refreshing to see against Kris Moutinho and Raulian Paiva that O’Malley was more content to pursue the finish with his boxing.

Among his more dynamic and flashy techniques, O’Malley’s spinning back kick is his best weapon. His other spinning attacks seem to be more style than substance.

O’Malley is one of the few fighters the UFC have deemed worthy of tailored matchmaking that gives prospects time to work on their weaknesses without repeatedly having their confidence crushed. However, the result is that he hasn’t faced offensive grapplers. His matchups were curated to give him the type of fight he wanted.

The second round of his fight against Andre Soukhamthath provides a unique look into his defensive grappling that is unmarred by injury. Like other areas, we see both good and bad. Unsurprisingly, O’Malley is a grappler that favors submission over position. O’Malley defended the initial takedown attempt from Soukhamthath, but he tried to transition into an armbar rather than getting his hips back to break contact. O’Malley was then driven over by the underhook of Soukhamthath and taken down. In the two minutes that followed, O’Malley threatened with a triangle, transitioned to an armbar, and used his butterflies to lock up a tight guillotine attempt.

As in the other phases of MMA, on the ground O’Malley appears to be an offense-first grappler. Although he lacks the finer finishing points that would allow him to get these submissions, it’s hard to fault him for this sort of lack of polish since he was only a 3-year pro at this point.

The UFC and Sean O’Malley seem to be on the same page about what they value in fighting: creating viral moments. O’Malley’s game prioritizes creating big, flashy moments of offense, but for long stretches of his fights, you will see him fencing at range with jabs and front kicks, looking to use his feints to draw his opponent into a kill shot.

Strategically, being an outside boxer-puncher type who wants to leverage length and speed sounds viable. However, against more seasoned bantamweights, it’s harder to work the setups he’s had success with thus far. We’ve already seen O’Malley struggle to get his offense going against Pedro Munhoz, who was content to kick at range and ignore all the feints. Against Kris Moutinho, we saw him struggle to maintain the distance and position in the cage where his offense shines the most.

What adjustments does Sean O’Malley need to make to become a proper contender in the stacked bantamweight division? If O’Malley wants to fight at range and have the space to do it, he has to learn to stand his ground. O’Malley can’t respond to every opponent committed to pressure by retreating to the cage. He should be more disciplined with his lateral movements, using tight pivots to circle opponents. He can take advantage of proactive clinch entries to stifle swarmers. Practicing defense in the pocket will enable him to avoid damage without conceding space. Perhaps he can be just a little bit more like Jose Aldo.

Jose Aldo, well past his prime, shows how to stand your ground against fighter trying to drown you with volume and pressure

O’Malley has flaws, as does every fighter, and while he’s been able to make some progress, at seven years into his pro career, the UFC is ready to see if their investment is going to pay off.