Bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley had a great first title defense, avenging his only UFC loss against Marlon Vera at UFC 299. His impressive performances this past year, knocking out a former champion and becoming the kingpin of the 135’ers, have led ‘Suga’ to win the ESPY Award for the Best UFC fighter. However, fans don’t agree with this choice.

The nominees for this year’s Best UFC Fighter award included some seriously big names. Islam Makhachev, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili. All three of them have had a great last 12 months. However, it was Sean O’Malley who got the better of them.

Sean O’Malley joined the list of some incredible athletes who won their ESPYs this year. And who are they? Well, the list includes Caitlin Clark, Shohei Ohtani and, of course, Patrick Mahomes, who starred in the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win over the San Francisco 49ers earlier this year.

While Sean O’Malley may have his fans who believe that he deserved the Best UFC Fighter ESPY, most fans weren’t having any of it. They sounded off on his award win on Instagram and believe that two of the other nominated UFC stars got robbed.

Fans claim ESPY should have gone to Alex Pereira or Islam Makhachev, not Sean O’Malley

After witnessing the list of nominated candidates for the ESP award, fans believe that either Islam Makhachev or Alex Pereira should have been the real winner of that award. Why? Well, in the past few months, they’ve established themselves as two of the biggest stars in the UFC as of now. One fan stated, “Alex and Islam deserves.” While another fan, who was left in disbelief at ESPN’s decision to give O’Malley the award, said, “Over Islam and Pereira is nuts.”

Some fans even deemed that the awards were “rigged” as they pointed out that winning an award like the ESPYs required athletes to have an online presence. A fan said, “Definitely the biggest in the UFC Alex doesn’t have the online presence Sean has … yes alex is a better champion.” Some fans also pointed out how Sean O’Malley struggled to beat Marlon Vera, who’s not even a top 5 opponent, compared to Alex Pereira and Islam Makhachev, who’ve beaten some of the top contenders in their divisions over the last year. Another fan added, “For beating like a number 7 ranked opponent by decision?”

The common reactions that the fans had were only catered to the fact that the jury who selected Sean O’Malley as the winner should have kept an eye on what the other nominees had done in the past calendar year. As such, a fan stated, “Love O’Malley but not sure he should have won that award over some of the runner ups.” After everything was said and done, the only thing fans concluded was that the ESPY award was a “robbery.”

Regardless of what the fans had to say, what do you think about Sean O’Malley winning the ESPYs? Drop your comments below.