Sean O'Malley baffled by Ilia Topuria's position on pound-for-pound list: "Less title defense and 5 inches shorter"

Sean O'Malley seems to rate himself higher in the UFC's cross-divisional hierarchy than Ilia Topuria. The reigning UFC bantamweight champion has apparently taken issue with the latest update on the UFC pound-for-pound rankings having the reigning promotional featherweight titleholder Topuria higher than him on the list.

Within those aforementioned rankings, Topuria is positioned in the number five spot while O'Malley is situated just below him in the number six slot. Only Leon Edwards, Jon Jones, Alex Pereira, and Islam Makhachev stand above these combatants within the ranking hierarchy.

By way of his personal X account, Sean O'Malley stated:

"How's Ilia higher on p4p ? Less title defense and 5 inches shorter. Plz explain."

Check out Sean O'Malley's comments on Ilia Topuria's place in the UFC pound-for-pound rankings below:

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Sean O'Malley and his resume compared to Ilia Topuria's

Sean O'Malley did go for a bit of a sophomoric height joke in his tweet but he does in fact have one more title defense than the relatively newly minted titleholder, Ilia Topuria. O'Malley captured the belt against Aljamain Sterling by stopping him with strikes in the first minute of the second stanza of their fight at UFC 292 last August.

The 29-year-old recorded the lone defense of his championship against the only man to have defeated him in professional mixed martial arts previously, Marlon 'Chito' Vera. O'Malley put on a masterclass performance and retained his belt via unanimous decision at UFC 299 in March.

'Suga' does not have his next fight officially lined up. But the rumblings are centric on fighting current number one bantamweight contender Merab Dvalishvili late this year in what would be the second defense of his crown. O'Malley has also previously notched a split decision win over former UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan at UFC 280 to punch his ticket to a title shot initially.

The Montana native feels his resume is stronger than Topuria's but the 145-pound kingpin is no slouch either. 'El Matador' is a 15-0 pro-MMA fighter and was previously a Cage Warriors champion before entering the UFC. The bulk of Topuria's wins have been stoppages within the first couple of rounds and that trend did not change when fighting a pound-for-pound elite last time out.

Alexander Volkanovski is regarded by many as the greatest featherweight in the history of the sport and Topuria wrested the crown from him by way of an emphatic second-round right hook knockout at UFC 298 in February. Volkanovski is still ranked at number seven pound-for-pound based on the UFC rankings in this often-referenced recent update.