Sean O'Malley and Alexandre Pantoja go at it publicly over past sparring session.
Pantoja, the UFC’s flyweight champion, posted on Instagram on Wednesday to say he’s interested in fighting O’Malley. He also mentioned that they’ve sparred before and wonders why O’Malley never sent him the footage.
“I’m talking about Sean O’Malley,” Pantoja said. “If there’s something that makes me go to bantamweight, it is this guy. He talks too much. He talks a lot of sh*t. I already trained with him before, and he recorded the sparring and never sent me the video. I wonder why?”
O’Malley, who’s fresh off a TKO win over then champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 in Boston this past Saturday, confirmed that they did spar in the past and that he has a video of it.
“Does he want me to post it? I finished him in the first round,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “Is that what he wants? I can post that. I wasn’t going to even bring it up. Is that what he wants? That’s funny.”
O’Malley said that he sparred Pantoja, helping him ahead of his UFC debut in 2017. “Sugar” claims he knocked out Pantoja, but then was submitted when they forced him to spar an extra round against the Brazilian.
“That’s funny. Does he forget how it played out?” O’Malley said. “I will say in the third round, he choked me. But I was like 1-0 or 2-0, and he was coming off ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ making his UFC debut, two weeks out from his UFC debut.
“I was f*cking smoking a joint the night before, just not expecting. Henry Cejudo and him just roll into the gym. They write my name down for two rounds, so I have to do two rounds in a row, and I’m not in camp – I’m not in shape. I finish him in the first round, and they’re f*cking pissed. I sparred him again in the second round. I’m 100 percent gassed from already whooping his ass. Henry is yelling, ‘We want him for three. We want him for three.’ In the video, I’m not sure if you can hear it – maybe you can – but he says to hold off on the punches because I was punching too hard.
“So they get me to go a third round. Benson (Henderson) is in the corner going from the second to third round yelling, ‘They don’t come to this gym, and we don’t get f*cking tired,’ and I’m gassed the f*ck out. I’m dying. He does choke me in the third round. This (has) got to be like 2015. This was a long time ago.”
