#2 UFC Bantamweight Division: Sean O’Malley vs. Marlon Vera
After his win at UFC 250 over Eddie Wineland, the hype train on Sean O’Malley began to accelerate to a simply ludicrous pace. Plenty of fans called for the 25-year old to be put in with former UFC champion Cody Garbrandt next, but thankfully, the UFC have held off on that and instead matched him with a fighter slightly lower on the ladder.
That’s not to say that Vera isn’t a massively talented fighter in his own right. ‘Chito’ has won five of his last six in the UFC, and really should’ve won his most recent fight, as some questionable judging cost him a win over Song Yadong.
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The native of Ecuador is a phenomenal offensive fighter, carrying knockout power in all of his strikes and possessing a venomous submission game on the ground. He’s also unbelievably tough, capable of taking serious punishment with no real issues.
As far as weaknesses go, ‘Chito’ seems to struggle with opponents who are capable of walking him down to land big shots – as Douglas Silva de Andrade and John Lineker both did in his last real losses. He’s also not the most physically strong 135lber, meaning it’s possible to bully him from the clinch.
To win this fight though, Vera’s best bet might be to aim for the clinch. O’Malley is a lanky Bantamweight at 5’11”, and his 72” reach gives him an advantage over Vera. Add in the fact that judging by his previous fights in the UFC, he’s a pinpoint striker who throws with a ton of power, and ‘Chito’ isn’t going to want to strike with him from the outside.
In all honesty, the biggest question around ‘Sugar Sean’ is how high his ceiling is. He’s looked fantastic throughout his UFC career thus far – even when he broke his foot fighting Andre Soukhamthath – but it’s also true that he hasn’t really been tested.
Wineland was clearly his most dangerous opponent to date, but the former WEC champ is also miles past his prime now and clearly struggled with the speed of O’Malley. But will Vera have the same issues? It’s hard to tell.
Basically, skill-for-skill, I’d be tempted to take Vera here. He’s more battle-tested, is more dangerous on the ground with submissions, and is probably O’Malley’s equal standing too. The issue he’s most likely to have, though, is the fact that he does have a tendency to come straight forward and look to exchange.
Against a striker of O’Malley’s skill and power, that’s very dangerous. If he can draw ‘Sugar Sean’ into a trade-off then there’s every chance he comes out on top, but if he just wades forward swinging, the likelihood is that O’Malley will cut some angles and catch him with something nasty as he did to Wineland.
Basically, we should learn plenty about O’Malley here, but only if Vera decides to fight smartly. I’m not sure that a point-fighting style is really in the Ecuadorian’s nature, and so I suspect O’Malley will pick him off to earn another big UFC win.