UFC bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley doesn’t put much stock in rising star Paddy Pimblett‘s recent comments that were specifically critical of his grappling prowess in his fights. O’Malley, known for his elite striking inside of the octagon, didn’t seem fazed after hearing about Pimblett’s recent trash talk.
O’Malley is coming off arguably two of the most impressive performances of his young UFC career, with a knockout over Thomas Almeida and the battering he put on Kris Moutinho at UFC 264 en route to a fifth-round TKO. He has quickly become one of the UFC’s brightest young stars stemming from his time on Dana White‘s Contender Series.
O’Malley recently got word of some harsh words that Pimblett had for him during a recent interview with MMA on Point and felt compelled to respond to the notion that his grappling isn’t exactly up to par.
Yeah, I didn’t know he was talking shit about me. That’s not very nice,” O’Malley said on his podcast. “Maybe he just knows that talk bad about me, it’s publicity. He said I had bad grappling. I wonder why people just assume I have bad grappling. So it’s just weird that some people just assume that because I’m a good striker I must be a bad grappler.”
O’Malley went on to acknowledge that he’s had brief spurts of grappling during his fights in the UFC. While he’s mostly known as a knockout artist and a striking specialist, he still trains jiu-jitsu during training in Arizona.
Pimblett is riding high after his incredible UFC debut, knocking out Luigi Vendramini at UFC Vegas 36 just minutes into the fight. Pimblett is the former Cage Warriors featherweight champion and arguably the biggest signing in the sport of MMA this year.
While there doesn’t appear to be serious bad blood between the two mega personalities, it appears that the two of them have different opinions about the grappling aspect of MMA, and more specifically regarding O’Malley’s skillset.
Do you think Sean O’Malley is as bad as Paddy Pimblett makes it out to be?