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“I think he’s dreaming about me, waking up and asking someone to help him tweet something.”
Petr Yan might be the new UFC bantamweight champion, but Sean O’Malley is the people’s champ.
The No. 14-ranked O’Malley is one of the most popular fighters in the division and believes all the top bantamweights — including Yan — are dreaming about him.
“I’m for sure easily the most talked about guy in the division,” O’Malley told MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin in a recent interview. “I’m talking a lot of smack about Petr [Yan], Cody, Henry [Cejudo], all these dudes, and they’re all replying. They all know that’s a realistic fight in the future. They’re not taking it as a joke. They know it’s serious business.
“I’m clearly in Petr’s head, or Pete-R, whatever you want to call him. I’m clearly in his head. He’s thinking about me. I think he’s dreaming about me, waking up and asking someone to help him tweet something.”
O’Malley went on to state that Yan, who TKO’d Jose Aldo at UFC 251 this past weekend to win the vacant bantamweight title, suffers with ‘short man syndrome’ and probably takes his insults too personally.
“Nothing’s personal,” O’Malley said. “These guys say anything, they can do anything, say anything – nothing’s going to be personal. I do look at the whole, even the social media tweets, as business. Short little people like Petr and Cody and Henry have short man syndrome, and they get angry at things and it’s personal.”
“For me, it’s always going to be business. I think Conor [McGregor] was really good at that until the Khabib [Nurmagomedov] fight. I feel like that got too personal, and it played games with him. I definitely learned from that experience with Conor vs. Khabib, I can’t let it get personal. I learn from everyone always, especially guys like Chael [Sonnen], Conor, guys that know how to talk and sell fights.”
O’Malley earned his highest-profile win to date with a highlight reel knockout of Eddie Wineland at UFC 250 and will look to return to the Octagon with another stoppage victory at UFC 252, where he takes on Marlon Vera at the UFC APEX facility in Las Vegas, Nevada on Aug. 15.