Dominick Cruz wants another fight soon. Sean O'Malley would like it to be against him.
So in an attempt to entice the former UFC bantamweight champion, O’Malley sprinkled some sugar on his latest callout.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel, O’Malley parks a dusty Nissan Altima into his driveway. He gets out of the car cool and collected, smoking a blunt, and grabs a basketball placed on the hood. Then he looks at the camera and lays out the 135-pound landscape in making his case for a matchup.
“What’s up, Dom? Heard you’re looking for a big fight. Who’s a bigger fight than me right now?” O’Malley says. “Corey is about to beat the EPO out of T.J. Rob is about to knock out Cody for the seventh time this year. Petr’s, uh, disqualified for cheating. Aljo’s still knocked out from the knee. Who’s the bigger fight?”
Talk of a potential fight between the 36-year-old Cruz and 26-year-old O’Malley started because of Chael Sonnen. After O’Malley’s knockout of Thomas Almeida last month at UFC 260, Sonnen appeared on the ESPN post-fight show and said Cruz text messaged him expressing interest in fighting O’Malley.
Cruz (23-3 MMA, 6-2 UFC) cleared the air earlier this week in an ESPN interview, saying that didn’t happen.
“He definitely bent the truth over backwards on this,” Cruz said. “I did not text him that. … I’m at a place in my career where I don’t need to call anybody out other than the champion himself.”
The good news for O’Malley (13-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC), though, is that Cruz seems at least seems somewhat intrigued by a potential fight.
“I could see how that would be a matchup that people are talking about,” Cruz said. “He feints a lot, he uses his range well, he’s tall, he’s long, I’m tall, I’m long, I use feints. We have a lot of similarities. If he’s an up-and-coming athlete, I’m sure he’s watched a ton of my fights and saw how successful (I’ve been). And I see that he uses a lot of stuff.
“No, I’m not opposed to it. But I haven’t talked to (matchmaker Sean) Shelby or anything, and I’m just getting back into training again now. I’m nursing bursitis in my left elbow. Once that goes away, we’ll think of something, and we’ll get back in there.”
Cruz snapped a two-fight losing skid in his most recent octagon appearance by winning a split decision against Casey Kenney at UFC 259.
