Cody Stamann says Sean O’Malley will only get so far with favorable match-ups and a slow burn up the bantamweight division.
Cody Stamann understands why someone like Sean O’Malley might be booked more favorably by the UFC, but he says MMA will always weed out the weak.
Stamann expressed his thoughts about his fellow bantamweight on the Pull No Punches podcast with Kajan Johnson and Shakiel Mahjouri.
“It makes sense. Sean O’Malley is obviously a bigger ticket seller than I am,” Stamann said of the UFC’s support for O’Malley. “I’m just a dumb country boy from Sparta. O’Malley’s really cool and he smokes pot and plays video games and that’s really cool. So more people want to watch him fight than watch me fight. He’s got cooler tattoos, all that stuff.”
“I understand why and I don’t get bitter by it, but I’m speaking the truth,” he insisted. “The kid is going to be protected. Anyone can see that he’s not fighting the guys I’m fighting. I fought the number eight guy in the world in my third UFC fight. He’s going to have an easier path, but that’s the great thing about MMA. Eventually, if you have a weakness and you’re a dork you’re going to get exposed. Eventually he’s going to have to fight somebody like me.”
A professional career in mixed martial arts is likely not a path most parents would urge their children follow. Stamann’s mom actually played a pivotal role in her son’s eventual foray into pro-MMA.
“I’m sure my mom didn’t want me to be a fighter, but realizing how I was growing up. I was always a pretty mean kid. If somebody took one of my toys I would beat them over the head with it. I was that sort of kid,” he shared. “I never got in trouble with the law or anything like that, but I had a really bad physical temper. If somebody pissed me off I wanted to hurt them. I wasn’t the kind of kid who talked about his feelings in class.”
“My mom kind of new I was always going to fight no matter what she tried to instill in me,” he continued. That is why at 18-year-old, “she was like, ‘if you’re going to fight you might as well be good at it. Here is a six-month membership at an MMA gym. Learn how to fight.’”
Stamann looks to get back on a winning streak when he faces Rob Font at UFC Greenville on June 22.