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The Sean O’Malley hype train came to a screeching stop as Marlon Vera emerged victorious at UFC 252. As soon as the fight came to a halt, former Bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt took to Twitter to take a jab at O’Malley.

The two had been trading verbal blows on social media for quite some time now. The possible feud was shaping up to become what could be a huge war of stand-up brutality. However, ‘No Love’ does not seem impressed with O’Malley after tonight.

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“Some people aren’t made for war… #SugaFree”

The verbal battle really took off when Sean O’Malley called Cody out for planning to shift down to flyweight. He replied to a tweet regarding the same with the implication of Garbrandt avoiding competition at bantamweight.

However, Garbrandt came back at him saying that he’ll rule both Bantamweight and Flyweight divisions by 2021.

The two went on trading bouts, possibly giving birth to a dynamic rivalry that would just explode inside the Octagon. However, O’Malley’s recent loss definitely backtracks any such bout. This is because the streak O’Malley was on was the reason for his constantly growing popularity and thus, exciting fights.

He will now need a couple of more wins amongst the lower-ranked opponents before fighting at the top-tier of the division.

What caused Sean O’Malley to lose his first fight?

Sean O’Malley met Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera in what came as the toughest challenge of his career to-date. Unfortunately, within the first round, the ‘Suga Show’ faced difficulties in the form of an injured ankle.

On the other hand, Vera apparently kept the first round for observation. And he did a splendid job at carrying out that strategy.

He kept his distance with O’Malley, calculating the correct scale of striking. However, while advancing for one of the exchanges, Sean added to the pain in his ankle by twisting it as his toes hit the ground and back.

Even though he took a moment to recover and return, the ankle twist took its toll. O’Malley tried to continue with a limp, but his knack for far-reaching kicks became quite a hindrance to his gameplay.

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In an attempt to engage O’Malley, Marlon opted for a ground-and-pound. He followed up with a grueling elbow to Sean’s temple, stunning him enough to land more and more strikes before the referee, Herb Dean, called a stop to the contest.

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In fact, O’Malley had to go out on a stretcher due to the severity of his injury.

What do you think will be next for Sean O’Malley? Let us know in the comments section!