Cory Sandhagen breaks down 'clunky grappler' Sean O'Malley's skillset and potential matchup: "I would do what I want"
Cory Sandhagen recently broke down Sean O'Malley's skillset and noted that a bantamweight clash between the two of them is one that fans are eager to see. He described areas in which he excels at but also pointed out what he should focus more on.
'Sandman' has been a fixture in the bantamweight title picture for quite some time. However, he most recently lost a unanimous decision to Umar Nurmagomedov in what was believed to be a title eliminator. Despite his loss, there have been many fans clamoring for a potential bout against 'Suga' primarily due to their respective fighting styles.
During his appearance on Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson's JAXXON PODCAST, Sandhagen was critical of the former bantamweight champion's grappling but noted that he does well against a certain type of fighter. The 32-year-old believes that he matches up well against O'Malley, especially with his ability to mix in his striking and movements:
"I really think that I would do what I want to O'Malley. He's a really clunky grappler. You could tell that he does a lot more stuff with his Jiu-Jitsu coach than he does with his wrestling coach and that's not the way to go about modern MMA. He does really well against a certain type of striker. Merab was probably the guy who moved the most on him and he had really big troubles with a mover...Mover guys do good against that style."
Check out Cory Sandhagen's comments below:
Cory Sandhagen expresses interest in fighting Sean O'Malley next
In addition to breaking down Sean O'Malley's skillset, Cory Sandhagen expressed interest in fighting the former bantamweight champion next.
During the aforementioned clip, Sandhagen mentioned that he would be interested in fighting O'Malley because it's a bout that fans constantly clamor for:
"I used to not give a sh*t about the fans to be honest. Now I really care about the fans. I understand that, like, these are the people that I'm kind of inspiring a little bit and I kinda wanna take that a little bit serious. So the bigger the fight, the more fans I get to watch and I know that everyone's calling for that fight [against O'Malley], so why don't we do that fight?"
Check out Cory Sandhagen's highlight-reel knockout win over Frankie Edgar below: