MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Sean O'Malley vs. Petr Yan at UFC 280!

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Luke Thomas is here to break down the latest news that Sean O'Malley will face Petr Yan on an already stacked UFC 280 card. Can Sean O'Malley get a title shot with a win? Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Luke Thomas from Morning Combat, one half of Morning Combat, here to react to some breaking news that came out today. That's Wednesday, July 20th, 2022. Namely, get this, folks. Sugar Sean O'Malley is set to take on in his next bout, which will be at UFC 280. That'll be at the Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, on pay-per-view. Sugar Sean O'Malley is going to fight Piotr Jan, or Peter Jan, however you would like to say it. Yes, O'Malley versus Jan. Jan, the former bantamweight champion,

fresh off of his defeat to Aljamain Sterling, the existing bantamweight champion. In his return bout, since losing, he's going to take on Sean O'Malley. Now, you might be saying, Luke, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yon, as it stands today, is literally ranked as the number one contender. O'Malley, as it stands today, or at least the recording of this video, is sitting at 13. How did a guy at 13 get matched with a guy at one? And the answer is, I don't really know. The news of the booking of the fight comes from an interview Sean O'Malley did with DC and RC, Daniel Cormier, Ryan Clark, the podcast that they do together for

ESPN. It was revealed during that it has subsequently been confirmed. So that's how the news came about. How the fight came about, I don't really get it. Now, I'm not mad at the fight. And in fact, I think it's kind of interesting. If you're Jan or a Jan fan, you get to fight someone outside the top 10 who's got a huge name. If you believe in Jan, you must like this as a return fight. It keeps your name quite visible. You're in a high profile contest and at least on

paper, it seems quite winnable. By contrast, if you're a Sugar Sean fan, I don't know what will happen with this, but it is at least conceivable that if the number 13 guy in the world beats the number one contender in that weight class, and I know this is going to sound crazy, it's not impossible to get a title shot. Now, I don't know that the UFC will do that, but you can't outright dismiss it. We're living in a world where Alex Pereira at middleweight was fast-tracked, and of course he has legitimate wins, but he was kind of fast-tracked to the top of that division. He doesn't have to go through your Vittoris and your Whitakers in order to basically get a title shot. There is a faster path for those that the UFC wants to fast-track.

It's the matchmaker model. It's not the tournament model. They can give preference to whoever they feel like. And they might be able to say with a straight face, listen, if you can beat Jan, the guy who held the title, you should be able to fight for a title thereafter. At a bare minimum, it puts him in the top five, top three, probably at worst. And maybe he might have to get one more after that. But this is the ultimate proving ground and there's been of course a lot of conversation about Sean O'Malley and the strength of his resume and how good is he to go from Howley and Paiva to which was a nice win to the fight with

Pedro Munoz at UFC 276 that got derailed from the eye poke which we didn't really get a lot of final conclusion on and I think some of the judges had Munoz winning that first round, two of the three, I believe. To then go to Jan, that is an extraordinary escalation for O'Malley. For the folks who are critics of O'Malley, who say he has been taking easier fights or he's looking to get big checks against little names, ladies and gentlemen, whatever you thought about what happened in the Munoz fight, this is out of the

frying pan and right into the fire. He isn't running from a big test at all. At all. And if he's as good as he says he is, and he can perform well against a guy as battle-tested, as well-rounded, as proven as Jan, the world will be his oyster at that point. That would be absolutely incredible. Not altogether unprecedented, but you don't see fighters outside the top 10 get number one contenders this easily. And when you add in the fact that part of the reason why I got it is probably Sean O'Malley's popularity, but also the fact that there is this sort of lingering desire to see him actually tested, and that if he can leapfrog to the front of the division and then win that popularity would continue to boost his fortunes into a potential title opportunity massive massive

fight for both yawn because if he loses you'd be losing to a guy outside the top 10 however talented you may believe him to be or not and of course if you, it boosts his fortunes by virtue of his ability. And again, for O'Malley, no win arguably anywhere in that division other than the champion. And even then, that would really depend on your perspective. But I'll just say this, that's about the most legit win any Bantamweight can get. It's about the most legit win. Sterling, of course, is your champion and beating him is a very different task. But in terms of the well-roundedness that Jan offers, he is an extraordinary talent. For a guy like O'Malley to beat him after going from Howley and Paiva to an inconclusive bout against Pedro Munoz, a very good fight on Pedro Munoz, but a very inconclusive result, to then this, you won't see this very often. That's pretty rare. That's crazy. And I know some folks might

hate it. I know some folks might like it. I tend to think it's actually kind of interesting when they jumble the division like this and they don't really adhere to the rankings. A lot of times what you see in fights, particularly on some of these apex cards, when you're looking at matchups, it'll be eight versus nine, six versus seven, 10 versus 11, right? It's a lot of the fighters paired closely together. I'm looking at the rankings now. If they paired O'Malley close together with other fighters near where he is, it'd be Frankie Edgar, but of course he's looking for a retirement bout at Madison Square Garden in the last quarter of this year, and then it'd be Ricky Simone. Now, Ricky Simone at UFC Long Island just called out Sugar Sean.

That fight actually makes a lot of sense. And I think Ricky Simone's actually a tough fight for really anybody in that division, particularly guys 10 to 15. No matter. The UFC has pumped him right to the front of the line. And again, it's not the tournament model. It's the matchmaker model. The matchmakers can do whatever they want.

They own the titles. They control them. It's not controlledmaker model. The matchmakers can do whatever they want. They own the titles. They control them. It's not controlled by a sanctioning body. They have the right to make the fights that they want to make. Now, of course, they can't compel someone to take a fight that they don't want to take, but clearly they offered it to Jan. They offered it to O'Malley and both accepted. I would love to know more from the matchmakers about why they selected this fight. At the time of this recording, we don't really have any, so I'm relying on just my own internal conjecture. Yours might differ.

And of course, if you have some opinions about it, leave it in the comment box below. I would love to see what you guys have to say about this one. But it's a crazy, crazy turn of events. But as I mentioned, this might just be some kind of new twist the UFC is on, putting Nate Diaz against Hamzat Shumayev. If you look at the rankings, they're not really all that close together at all in welterweight. In fact, I have it up here right now.

You've got Hamzat Shumayev sitting at three. Nate Diaz isn't even ranked. Not even ranked. So in back-to-back days, because the Nate Diaz-Hamzat Shumayev news was announced yesterday, and now this today, in back-to-back days, you've got fighters in terms of their ranking super far apart getting paired for all kinds of reasons. But fealty to the rankings, it ain't one of them. Now, again, you might like this fight or you might hate this fight. I actually find it pretty intriguing, and I'm a little bit numb to matchmaking whim to get too upset about it. It's kind of a crazy fight, but that's sort of the sport that we live in.

That's my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary. I guess what I would say, though, is this UFC 280 card, it's an important one. It's a crazy one remember at the top the more recent glamour division of the UFC 155 they're going to have a title fight for that Charles Oliveira the sort of assumed champion but technically not is going to fight Islam Makachev right so that's your main event then your co-main is that same division for O'Malley and Yan, the bantamweight title fight between Aljamain Sterling, right? He's your champion.

And then TJ Dillashaw, the former champion who actually never had the belt taken from him in the ring, only administratively. They're going to be competing in your main and co-main. So you have two title fights in arguably the glamour division, and then maybe the absolute best division in all of MMA, certainly in UFC. That's a hell of a one-two combo. Then behind it, you also have, previously announced at UFC 280, Bilal Muhammad at 170 pounds, taking on Sean Brady. An extremely, extremely important contender fight in the 170-pound division. And of course, those guys are matched a little more

closely. Sean Brady sitting at nine below Muhammad sitting at five. Even that is a pretty big jump. Most guys at five don't want to take on people who are ranked below them. They want to fight the guys at the top. I guess in the case of Jan, he had nowhere to go but down given that he holds the number one ranking position, which by the way, I personally don't agree with guys losing a title and then keeping the number one ranked position. I think there should be more of a shuffling of the reordering, but that's my personal opinion, neither here nor there. But for him to go all the way down to 13, that is unusual.

That is extremely unusual. So you've got, to recap one more time, Oliveira versus Mokachev, title fight, 155. Sterling versus Dillashaw, title fight, 135. Brady versus, or I should say, Bilal Muhammad, so Muhammad versus Brady at 170. A massive contender fight. And now add this one to the list.

Jan versus O'Malley. Folks, that is a crazy card. That's a stacked card. Of course, knock on wood, I don't know if all these fights will make it by the time late October rolls around. Your guess will be as good as mine. And here's something else to think about. As stacked as that card is, there's another fight they could add to it that has been heavily rumored, although at the time of this recording, we don't have any news about, namely a presumed bout between Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler, who apparently got into it, remember, at UFC 276 in the stands at some point, and have been chirping about each other in interviews back and forth. So can you imagine that for a second?

Imagine that's your main card. And again, the other four fights we know are going to take place there, assuming everything goes as normal. Imagine if they add that to the list. So let's go through that list one more time. Oliveira versus Makachev for the title. Sterling versus Dillashaw for the title. Muhammad versus Brady. Jan versus O'Malley.

And Poirier versus Chandler, that would be your main card. That is one of the most insane main cards in a long time. Just nothing but Lightweights, Bantamweights, and Welterweights. Wow. Wow. That is a crazy card. That's actually what comes to fruition. So one more reminder, Poirier vs. Chandler has not been made as of the time of this recording, and even if it has been made and not announced, we don't know exactly where the UFC is going to put it. But the presumption is you could put it there, and what would it do to that card? UFC 280, Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, October 22nd on pay-per-view. If you are at all a fight fan, if you are at all an MMA

fan, that is one not to miss. In part because the top two bouts are extremely important, and in part because there are other contender bouts that are important, like Muhammad versus Brady, and in part because there might just be an absolute metric ton of craziness when they put former Bantamweight champion Jan against rising, yet at this level, at this level, unproven, Sugar Sean O'Malley. But if Sean O'Malley can capitalize on all the popularity he has amassed for himself and actually beat an opponent of this quality, he might be your new big star in MMA. I mean, in some level he already is, but I mean the kind that is in highly relevant belts on highly relevant cards. He's always been on kind of bigger cards of late, but you know what I'm saying, in the key spots in them where everything is built around him

rather than him being an interesting addition to how everything has gone. What a turn of events. So what do you think of these bouts? What do you think will happen on October 22nd? Does Sean O'Malley stand a chance? Is he going to get butchered? You tell me. Leave a comment below. I would love to see it. Like the video. Hit subscribe. We'll have more on this on Friday's Morning Combat, but that's it for today. I'm Luke Thomas. I'll see you all next time.