Sean O'Malley and Cody Garbrandt have been going back and forth for weeks since UFC 269. It seemed like both men wanted the fight but O'Malley has recently changed his tune.
Cody Garbrandt recently announced that he was very interested in the fight and was ready to move back up to bantamweight. Sean O'Malley shut that down recently. The UFC fighter took to his podcast to talk about it.
“Dude, Cody’s not getting that fight. That fight’s not happening,” O’Malley said on a new edition of the Timbo Sugar Show podcast. … “It doesn’t make sense for him to say that. You wonder if that’s CTE. He’s been knocked out five times in the last two years. That fight’s not happening. At least not next. It literally just doesn’t make sense if you look at his record.”
The UFC bantamweight then went on to explain why the fight doesn't make sense anymore for him. It's all about what a win does for him and what a loss would do for him.
“Against Cody, yea [it would be heavily watched]. No, that’s not next. … I go out there and knockout out Cody, he’s one and seven [in his last eight]. I lose to Cody, I lose to someone who’s kind of looked at as who sucks now,”said O’Malley.
It isn't clear what the UFC wants to do with either man going forward, they are in very different places. Sean O'Malley will certainly have plenty of options going forward into the new year with fresh matchups.