Prior to Alexandre Pantoja’s upcoming defense of the flyweight title, ‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley has revealed screenshots from their previous sparring sessions as titleholders.
Pantoja is set to battle the unexpected title contender Steve Arceg for the 125-pound championship this Saturday in the main event of UFC 301 in Rio de Janeiro.
This fight follows his successful defense against Brandon Roybal at UFC 290 in December, just five months ago.
Just days before their highly anticipated face-off in Brazil, Sean O’Malley shared an image from a sparring session in 2015 where ‘Sugar’ reportedly stunned ‘The Cannibal’ with a well-placed lever shot.
During that time, Pantoja had not yet made his UFC debut, while having already fought in 18 professional mixed martial arts bouts, O’Malley commenced his professional career the year he trained with Pantoja.
Tim Welch Discusses Sean O’Malley Cornering Alexandre Pantoja
Tim Welch, the longtime coach of Sean O’Malley, provided some insight into the incident on his YouTube channel, confirming that “Sugar” swiftly triumphed over Pantoja in their exchange.
“[He wasn’t] I’m really in fight camp,” Welch mentioned on his YouTube channel. . “I’m going to spar for a few rounds, and Henry… [Cejudo] It’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to spar with this guy?'”
“So Shawn said, ‘Yeah, I’ll spar him.’ They spar for one round, and Shawn comes out with a lip and takes him down. Defeat him in the first minute. I’ll tell you, this is – I don’t even remember what year it is – I don’t think Sean was a pro yet. He may have been a professional just breaking in. Sean comes out there and is jumping up and down, young man. Boom, hit him with a liver shot and knock him down.”
“Pantoja has to stop, wave his hand, go to Henry, kneel down, stop. I mean, there’s a video, the video hasn’t been released, but he’s disparaging him.” (h/t MMA Mania).
