Midnight Mania! O’Malley Copies Cruz’s Dance Moves, Beats Up Heavy Bag Henry

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every quarantined night!

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

With 750 thousand Instagram followers and his own strain of marijuana, Sean O’Malley is among the most popular unranked fighters on the UFC roster. His flashy and effective striking style definitely helps, but O’Malley also has a standout sense of humor and style that has only grown his audience, even while “The Suga Show” was sidelined for the better part of two years by USADA issues.

With the martial arts world at a relative stand still (at least until May 9th at the earliest), O’Malley has been among the more active on social media, posting goofy workouts and parodies. His latest such clip is above, as O’Malley mockingly dances around the heavy bag — seemingly a Henry Cejudo stand-in — and shoots out silly strikes.

Somehow, I doubt Dominick Cruz would take kindly to this homage. “The Dominator” is scheduled to return for the first time in over four years opposite Henry Cejudo at the aforementioned May 9th mega-event, but it remains to be seen if Cruz and the event are able to hold on for another three weeks without major incident.

O’Malley, meanwhile, is unbooked, but he seems to have his eyes set on the Bantamweight title picture. Think he finds himself in that mix sooner than later, or is O’Malley a better sideshow attraction than true contender?

Insomnia

The second episode of our Thailand documentary series is out, and it’s all about jiu-jitsu and fried food. Check it out!

Stephen Thompson with a touch of sass! I thought it was a fair decision on a close fight, but maybe Darren Till vs. Stephen Thompson should be our next “Robbery Rewind.”

Speaking of Till, I’m decently sure we’ll see him on an episode of Catfish soon.

Man, this would be a pretty incredible fight! I’d settle for watching a sparring clip though.

Khabib doesn’t actually deserve blame for being unable to compete at a cancelled event, but this is a cool piece of fan art regardless.

Anyone else down for this match up?

Slips, rips, and KO clips

A slugfest that ends dramatically:

Mauricio Rua has been getting into wars pretty much since day one. Is it any wonder “Shogun” has struggled with injuries so much in the last decade?

The theme of tonight’s Midnight Mania is brawls. True to its caption, this is an absolutely absurd two minutes of action.

Random Land

A melting cat.

Midnight Music: Use your quarantine time to watch Letterkenny, a brilliant show on Hulu/Crave TV whose soundtrack always impresses me.

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.