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Bantamweights
NR | Sean O'Malley (13-1, 5-1 UFC) vs. NR | Kris Moutinho (9-4, 0-0 UFC)Advertisement
O’Malley is an obvious talent, which is about all that has been consistent over the course of his four years on the UFC roster. O’Malley was one of the standouts on the first season of Dana White’s Contender Series. Beyond his exciting fighting style and ability to knock out opponents, he had enough personality and charisma to get a reaction out of viewers, for better or for worse. The UFC realized what it had and immediately gave O’Malley some prominent main card fights against Terrion Ware and Andre Soukhamthath—victories that confirmed him as a top prospect to watch who just needed a bit more seasoning. Instead, O’Malley’s career was derailed for two years after the Soukhamthath fight, first due to injury and then due to the same drug test “pulsing” issue that kept Jon Jones out of action around the same time. Even with the long layoff, O’Malley almost immediately regained his momentum upon his return in 2020, scoring impressively quick knockouts of Jose Alberto Quinonez and Eddie Wineland that got the hype train back rolling. That led to O’Malley getting a co-main event slot opposite Marlon Vera at UFC 252 in August, at which point things started to turn sour for “Sugar Sean.” A first-round stoppage loss was seemingly set up by a leg injury. Between that and the injury he suffered in the Soukhamthath fight, there are now some long-term concerns about O’Malley’s ability to withstand such a movement-heavy style. Afterwards, O’Malley handled the loss about as poorly as possible, which quickly led to a fan backlash. O’Malley’s power and ability to shock his opponents are not in question, but there is still much about his game that needs to be developed, namely his cardio and grappling, the latter of which has remained basically a question mark over the course of his UFC career. With parts of the fandom now down on O’Malley, a narrative has developed that the UFC is protecting him from tough competition. His comeback fight was announced against Thomas Almeida, who did not figure to test any of O’Malley’s weaknesses, and he was given another relatively soft test here against Louis Smolka.
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With Smolka getting injured about two weeks out and most of the UFC’s bantamweight roster offering themselves as a replacement, the hope was that the promotion would take advantage of the opportunity and test O’Malley a bit more. Instead, the promotion opted to sign a newcomer in Moutinho. That was not meant as a slight towards Moutinho, who was on the verge of a UFC callup and is a solid fighter, but this looks to be an extremely tough ask for his first UFC fight. There could be some intrigue if Moutinho completely sells out to try and clinch and grapple with O’Malley, but the favorite is the much larger fighter and Moutinho has a tendency to eat some huge punches, even in his victories. O’Malley should be able to clip Moutinho early and take things from there. The pick is O’Malley via first-round knockout.
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