Former UFC bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, will “eventually” jump to the 145-pound weight class.
But much like reigning heavyweight titleholder Jon Jones, who benched himself in order to gain size and strength at a reasonable rate, “Suga” will likely need “a good amount of time off” to get his body accustomed to a heavier frame.
And the challenges that come with maintaining it.
“It’s gonna take … a good little amount of time off, a good amount of time off to put on a real, five-pounds of muscle,” O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch, told Submission Radio. “Five pounds of muscle that you have cardio in and that you’re strong and explosive. Not just put on five pounds of muscle in 10-12 weeks and then try to go into a training camp and fight with that. Take some time to just learn to carry that new weight, maybe walk around at 165 pounds. So just take some time off, build up, and we have a bunch of 145-pound killers that we can train with so he’s used to the size, so that’s probably what the plan would be.”
Don’t forget about those skills, bro.
“It’s so hard to say [what the future holds], every single fight I’m just like, you never know when could be the last fight, you never know what’s gonna (expletive) happen in these fights,” Welch continued. “You never know what kind of injuries are gonna happen, in training camp, in the fight, you never know, so it’s fun to just sit there and think about what could be, what could happen in a year or two. But realistically, right now, we’re just focusing on trying to get healthy, focus on this next fight, and then think about what’s next. But, you never know. With a guy like Sean, the sky’s the limit. It could be anything: 145, big fights, it could be boxing matches, who knows? Whatever is gonna be the biggest fight, that’s what we’re looking for.”
Unfortunately, not every trip north bears championship fruit.
O’Malley, 30, who coughed up the crown to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306 last fall in Las Vegas, is hoping to rematch “The Machine” later this year — or challenge Umar Nurmagomedov for the 135-pound strap, depending on what happens in the UFC 311 co-main event.
We’ll find out in less than two weeks.