Sean O’Malley is excited to be fighting at UFC White House, but Aiemann Zahabi wasn’t his first option.
Coming off of a much-needed win over Song Yadong this past January, O’Malley kept himself in the thick of the bantamweight title picture, especially with rival Merab Dvalishvilli—who holds two wins over O’Malley—having recently dropped the belt to Petr Yan. For O’Malley, who beat Yan in a close fight at UFC 280, it made sense for the two of them to rematch with a championship on the line, but O’Malley was instead called upon to face Zahabi on June 14, while Yan remains unbooked.
According to O’Malley, it was more Yan’s side that didn’t want to run it back.
“I was supposed to fight Petr Yan, the champ, the little Russian, but I beat him last time so he didn’t want to fight this time,” O’Malley told FOX 11 Los Angeles. “That would have been a big fight. I’m fighting a guy named Aiemann Zahabi, he’s on a seven-fight win streak, he’s from Canada, a Canadian fella, so it’s kind of America vs. Canada-ish if you’re looking at it that way, which is kind of exciting.
“Very tough, very durable, very experienced. Very tough fight. An exciting challenge, he’s going to be more of a kickboxer style so it’s going to be a very exciting, electric kickboxing fight with little gloves on.”
Regardless of whether it was Yan or Zahabi, O’Malley will enjoy a home field advantage of sorts when he makes his walk at the White House. The Montana native’s past three opponents have all come from outside the United States and while O’Malley doesn’t want to lean too far into the U.S. against the world angle, he sees the storyline potential with Canada’s Zahabi.
“I’m not a very political person, I would say pretty much not at all,” O’Malley said in a separate interview with Against The Cage. “For me, it doesn’t matter who I’m fighting, but it is America vs. Canada, there’s a little bit of that to it. This is just man vs. man. We’re going to get locked in the doors and see who quits, see who breaks, see who gets knocked out first, that’s what it is every fight for me.
“But it is fun, there’s a little bit of the America-Canada thing, so it adds to it a little bit. Team vs. team, people like to pick teams, so there’s that aspect to it, but for me it’s just human vs. human.”
The win over Song snapped a two-fight skid for O’Malley, with both of those losses coming in title fights against Dvalishvili. Until Yan’s next title defense is booked, it’s unclear which challenger will be chosen from the contender line, but the popular O’Malley hopes that a strong showing at UFC White House puts him where he wants to be.
“Who knows, maybe if I would have went out there and finished Song in spectacular fashion I would have got the Petr fight,” O’Malley said. “I don’t know. The UFC does what they do and all I can do is go out there and fight and put on performances, so if I go out there and get a beautiful performance, I don’t see how I’m not next for the title. If it is Merab-Petr next and Merab wins, we’ll see how that plays out.”
