UFC News: “Easy Money” for Sean O’Malley as Alexandre Pantoja’s Challenge Triggers UFC Champ’s Response

Sean O’Malley captured the bantamweight title in 2023 after defeating Aljamain Sterling in UFC 292. Since then he has become one of the biggest superstars in the Octagon. After winning the title against ‘Chito’ at UFC 299 in Miami, ‘Suga’ decided to call out featherweight champion, Ilia Topuria. He even called out Merab and now it seems like he is after Pantoja. 

Alexandre Pantoja had previously won the flyweight title after defeating Brandon Moreno. He had also spoken about a potential move up to the bantamweight and the 26-5 fighter indicated that he has a desire of competing with Sean O’Malley. ‘Suga’ was not the one to sit back and previously responded to the call out through his social media. Recently Pantoja again discussed his interest in fighting the champion. ‘The Cannibal’ is set to defend his 125-pound gold against 10th-ranking, Steve Erceg in May at UFC 301. If ‘The Cannibal’ can retain the strap in the next game he’s gradually going to move up to the title contention at 135 pounds. ‘Suga’ was anything but speechless when he got to know about this and uploaded an Instagram story where he claimed something interesting.

Alexandre Pantoja challenged by Sean O’Malley

Pantoja had previously said that he was open to moving up to 135 to fight Sean O’Malley. According to a previous post by Championship Rounds, The Cannibal said, “I’m just thinking about going to bantamweight to fight O’Malley, that’s a good history I have with him. 6 years ago I go to Arizona to train with him. I found his reach, when I trained with O’Malley, it’s not a big problem for me. Maybe after the second title defense, I’m very open for that opportunity, but just for O’Malley.”

The reply to that came from Sean O’Malley who posted a picture on his story on Instagram and captioned it with a simple phrase stating, “Ez $$.” This supposedly indicates that ‘Suga’ thinks Pantoja is easy money.

Pantoja has previously explained his desire to fight O’Malley. He also candidly explained why he wanted to fight O’Malley and what was in it for him.

Why does Pantoja want to fight O’Malley?

In a previous post on Instagram when the UFC Flightweight Champion had asked his fans who should he fight for his next title the fans had mentioned Sean O’Malley’s name. The UFC champion agreed and said that ‘Suga’ was the only fighter who could make him move up in the weight class. He said, “If I have something to make me go to the bantamweight, [it] is this guy [Sean O’Malley], bro.”

He also revealed that O’Malley had a sparring session with him some time ago but did not upload the video of the same. In the past, both the fighters used to train together and a couple of years ago O’Malley had claimed to have knocked out the Cannibal in a sparring match.

If this matchup happens then it is going to be a champion versus champion game and it’s always exciting for the fans to witness. Who do you who do you think is going to win this match if it was booked?

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