Prior to his championship win over Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 last weekend, Sean O’Malley was backed to fulfil his apparent “destiny” to clinch division spoils by current middleweight kingpin, Israel Adesanya – who claimed he followed through with his prediction of events as he reacted to the savage knockout stoppage.
Headlining his first event since landing in the Octagon from Dana White’s Contender Series, Montana native, O’Malley strapped himself with undisputed bantamweight gold with a stunning second round TKO win over Sterling, laying waste to the Uniondale native with a slew of damaging ground strikes.
Israel Adesanya heaps praise on Sean O’Malley after UFC 292 win
And sharing his thoughts on the victory, Adesanya makes his own return to the Octagon next month in Sydney, Australia as he takes main event honors at UFC 293 against challenger, Sean Strickland, claimed once more that it was the “destiny” of O’Malley to win bantamweight spoils at the TD Garden event a week ago.
“Wow,” Israel Adesanya said in a reaction video posted on his YouTube channel. “Destiny, destiny, destiny, that’s destiny, man. Damn. I knew it, I was like, ‘I know it’s gonna happen.’”
“What did I say? He’s (Sean O’Malley) gonna touch him (Aljamain Sterling) – just out of range. Checkmate, checkmate, checkmate, checkmate – you reached.
Already plotting his first attempted defense of the bantamweight crown after his coronation at UFC 292, Montana striker, O’Malley has welcomed a title rematch with prior foe and fellow event feature, Marlon Vera for UFC 296 in December of this year.
Furthermore, O’Malley has been the subject of call outs for the end-of-annum event by surging number two ranked contender and teammate of Sterling, Merab Dvalishvili, as well as former two-division champion, Henry Cejudo.