Ahead of his return to the Octagon this weekend atop a UFC Fight Night Nashville card, surging bantamweight technician, Cory Sandhagen has elected against taking career advice from incoming title challenger, Sean O’Malley – describing certain characteristics of the Montana native as “super lame”.
Sandhagen, the current number four ranked bantamweight contender, makes his Octagon return this weekend at UFC Nashville – taking on short-notice replacement, Rob Font, after an initial scheduled clash against the streaking, Umar Nurmagomedov fell to the wayside.
Sidelined since April, Eliot Marshall trainee, Sandhagen most recently turned in a one-sided split decision win over common-foe, Marlon Vera at UFC Fight Night San Antonio, which followed a prior fourth round doctor’s stoppage win over Song Yadong in another headlined last year.
For O’Malley, the Dana White’s Contender Series alum has been sidelined himself since October of last year, earning next week’s UFC 292 title fight against champion, Aljamain Sterling with a close judging win of his own over former gold holder and common-opponent, Petr Yan.
Cory Sandhagen explains his differences with Sean O’Malley
Sharing his thoughts on recent comments made in a bid to advise fighters from O’Malley, Sandhagen admitted that he could not “connect” with some of the thought processes of the title chaser.
“There are things about Sean O’Malley that I think are just like, super lame,” Cory Sandhagen told Shakiel Mahjouri during a recent interview. “Talking about things like, ‘You fight the worst guy for the most amount of money.’ Everything being like, business decisions. It’s like, I can’t connect with that type of thinking at all. To me, those are ways of thinking that are just weak and they’re ways of thinking that are gonna trend into ruining the sport a little bit, in my opinion.”
“You should want to fight the best guy,” Cory Sandhagen explained. “If you’re here to be the actual world champion, that’s what we’re doing. I don’t see this as a business really… I make good money now, I’m good. The greediness and the business decisions things that happen in a lot of these ways of thinking are, to me, lame. I don’t think that passing on the message that you should fight the worst guy for the most amount of money – that is just such a weak way of thinking.” (Transcribed by MMA News)