Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
Sean O’Malley sounds happy to be back in the cage and fighting again. And moving forward he’s hoping to use Conor McGregor’s rise as a business model for the future.
Unfortunately for Sean O’Malley, his return to MMA action couldn’t have come with much worse timing. Right as he’s once again made a splash in the Octagon, with this thrilling win over Alberto Quinonez, the UFC has found themselves postponing events, leaving fighters without a clear timeline to return to action amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
That doesn’t seem to have dampened the MMA Lab product’s spirits at all, however. In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, O’Malley spoke about his plans for the future. About how he’s hoping to fight in Sand Diego in eight weeks, and about the feeling of stepping back in the Octagon again after two years away.
“I don’t think I really lost any hype going into that fight,” O’Malley said of his recent bout with Quinonez. “It was exciting. I think people feel that certain way when I fight, and I’m excited to get back in there and make them feel that again. It’s powerful.”
Most notably, O’Malley also spoke about his long term plans for his career. Providing the 25-year-old stays healthy, ‘Sugar’ is hoping to keep fighting well into his mid-30s. “I’m extremely healthy and I could maintain that for that long. Once you start fighting the best guys in the world, you’re going to fight nothing but the best guys in the world. So I’m going to take it fight by fight, take it slow.”
Eventually, he’s looking to model his career of the extreme success of the UFC’s biggest superstar, Conor McGregor—who has leveraged his MMA popularity into a massive boxing PPV and a successful whiskey brand, as well as his financial successes with the UFC.
“Conor [McGregor’s] career, they did pretty well with as far as building him up,” O’Malley said when asked how he’s looking to progress. “It’s a business. It’s a career. You can only fight for so long. You’ve got to make as much money as you possibly can. So we’re going to look at it like a business and go from there.”
So far, with an unbeaten 11-0 record under his belt, O’Malley absolutely looks poised to become a major feature fighter for the UFC going forward. That could very well mean title shots and PPV headlining opportunities. But, even turning that kind of success into the superstardom that McGregor has achieved would be an incredibly difficult task. Hopefully, O’Malley can return to action soon and get another opportunity to prove he’s MMA’s next big thing.