Sean O'Malley scored savage one-punch KO in lone boxing bout, now he wants Ryan Garcia fight
26/04/2024 15:29
UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley is hoping to land a crossover boxing bout with Ryan Garcia.
But it wouldn’t mark the first time he has stepped between the ropes.
Before bursting onto the MMA scene with a brutal knockout win over Alfred Khashakyan on a Dana White’s Contender Series show in 2017 – a victory that led to him being offered a contract with the UFC – O’Malley tried his hand at boxing.
At the time, ‘Suga’ was tearing it up in regional MMA having won all four of his first pro fights when he took a lone boxing bout with a journeyman boxer named David Courtney.
The pair met at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix on July 16, 2017, and despite Courtney already being a veteran of 3 gloved fights at that point (1-2) he was no match for the debutant.
O’Malley floored Courtney three times in the opening stanza before flatlining him with a vicious right hand to close the show with one second left in the first round.
The 29-year-old has since gone on to become one of the most recognisable faces in MMA and is now campaigning for a fight with Garcia.
After witnessing ‘King Ry’ overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to defeat Devin Haney over the distance last weekend, O’Malley disclosed a promising conversation he had with the UFC about a potential crossover bout with Garcia.
"They told me you can do a boxing fight, 100 per cent, if it makes us enough money," O'Malley said on his TimboSugarShow podcast.
"So, the option's there, it just has to be able to make enough money.
"But Ryan being a f***ing freak like that, you need two A-sides to make a f***ing Floyd-Conor fight."
O'Malley believes a couple of impressive 135lb title defences will be enough to convince Garcia, UFC boss Dana White and everyone else that the fight is financially viable.
He added: "I'm not there yet, I've still got to become bigger.
"Two more f***ing sick performances and then we're talking about being able to do whatever the f*** we want."
Garcia seems more eager to challenge O’Malley in the cage rather than the squared circle, but he has welcomed his rival’s ring proposal.
“Rainbow caca brain wants to box be prepared to bleed rainbow,” he wrote.
“Man bun slash Conor clone wants a boxing match hmmm I wanted MMA but let's do it that's my brothers name b**** now i have to destroy you, lil pony cannot defeat me.”
Garcia claims he even messaged White about facing O’Malley in the UFC Octagon.
"I know I'm going to knock him out in boxing, that's not even fair. What is fair is to test myself in MMA,” Garcia said on The MMA Hour.
"I've already got people that are connected to Dana to ask him, let's do this. I'll come to UFC, pay me a bag, I'm there.
“I'm down to do it. I know if I put my mind to it and I trained every day and I had Nate [Diaz] helping me, even Alex Pereira, all of them, and I really locked in, he will not beat me.
“I will come with everything I have and I will destroy Sean O'Malley. In the UFC."
