After UFC 269 Win, Sean O’Malley Latest to Criticize Cormier’s Broadcast Work

Las Vegas, NV — If there was one man who wasn’t surprised to see Sean O’Malley finish Raulian Paiva in the opening round at UFC 269, it was the “Suga Show” fighter himself.

“To be honest, any time I get in the octagon, I feel like it’s going to be a first round knockout,” O’Malley (15-1) told media outlets following his third consecutive win this year. “I feel like anybody I fight has never fought somebody like me, and I know a lot of people say that, but I think it’s true when I stand in there.”

O’Malley’s third finish in three fights came with under thirty seconds to spare, and like Dominick Cruz earlier this week, the bantamweight toook UFC color commentator Daniel Cormier to task over comments made on past broadcasts.

“I want to thank myself for looking at the clock and seeing how much time was left. Because some people — Daniel Cormier — my last fight, he’s ‘oh my God, he’s looking at the clock!’ What are you talking about dude? Yeah I’m going to look at the clock, if I didn’t look at the clock, I wouldn’t know how much time I have left!” exclaimed O’Malley, who added that “if I land a big shot, I don’t know how much time I have left. Do I empty my tank, and try to take this dude out, or should I wait, and then the rest of the fight, save my energy?”

O’Malley admitted that Cormier’s past comments had bugged him. “Oh he looked at the clock? The dude’s a double champ. What’s your IQ? Your fight IQ? You think Lebron James is going to drive the ball down the court and not look at the clock? It’s amateur. ”

When it was suggested that DC has been criticized rather frequently this week, O’Malley retorted “don’t say stupid sh*t,” but admitted that Cormier does have a tough gig. “It’s hard though. That’s a hard, hard job. I couldn’t do his job. I could not sit out there and commentate that many fights and do his job. I would sound like a complete idiot.”

The 27-year old, who is the biggest star Dana White’s Contender Series has produced to date, also believes that Cormier wants him to fail, inside the octagon at least.

“I’ve always felt like DC wants me to lose. I don’t know, I could be wrong. I sat down with him the other day, it’s not like he doesn’t like me personally, I just feel like he kind of wants to see me lose. I don’t know what it is, if I remind him of a young Jon Jones. But for some reason I feel like he wants me to lose, and there’s certain things he says when he’s commentating. But also like I said, commentating would be a really hard job, and maybe I’m just taking it personal, and being a p*ssy.”

O’Malley also exchanged words with the other bantamweight who has criticized Cormier this week, Dominick Cruz. While O’Malley has called out Cruz in the past, and goaded him about being on the UFC 269 prelims, everything was apparently cordial after the fight on Saturday.

“Domincik Cruz, that dude’s a living legend and he’s still fighting right now,” said O’Malley. “He just said congratulations, that’s it.”

Watch the full UFC 269 post-fight press conference with Sean O’Malley above. More coverage from the event can be found below.