"He never passed the training [video]" - Alexandre Pantoja talks history with Sean O'Malley, says he "smashed" 'Suga' in sparring session years ago
Alexandre Pantoja recently recalled his sparring session with Sean O'Malley, asserting that he thoroughly dominated him.
Pantoja clinched the flyweight title with a split decision triumph over Brandon Moreno at UFC 290 last July. Following this, 'Suga' secured the bantamweight championship by knocking out Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 in August.
After O'Malley's win, 'The Cannibal' remarked on Instagram that he would be interested in fighting O’Malley because he "talks too much." The Brazilian mentioned that the two had previously trained together and said O'Malley had never shared the sparring video.
Check out Alexandre Pantoja's post below:
During a recent interview with New York Post Sports, Pantoja claimed that he outperformed 'Suga' in their sparring session and reiterated his accusations against the 135-pound champion for withholding the training video:
"I have some history with him. Before I started talking about O'Malley, talk first about me, and I didn't understand how he talked about me. I sparred with him six years ago for my first UFC fight, and he said some bad things about that. That's crazy. He recorded the sparring, and he never passed the training [video to me]."
Pantoja added:
"I asked his friend, [Henry] Cejudo, 'Can you talk with your friend to send the video?' and he said to me, 'Hey, he’s not gonna send it to you, bro. You smashed him.'"
Check out Alexandre Pantoja's comments below:
'The Cannibal' is gearing up for his second title defense against Steve Erceg in the main event of UFC 301, scheduled to take place this Saturday at the Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
When Sean O'Malley fired back at Alexandre Pantoja's sparring assertions
Following the widespread attention gained by Alexandre Pantoja's claim that Sean O'Malley was deliberately not sharing their sparring video last year, 'Suga' took to his YouTube channel to retaliate against the reigning flyweight champion.
In his video (via MMA Junkie), O'Malley acknowledged that they did spar before Pantoja's UFC debut in 2017 but presented a different perspective on the sequence of events:
"Does he want me to post it? I finished him in the first round. Is that what he wants? I can post that. I wasn’t going to even bring it up. Is that what he wants? That’s funny. Does he forget how it played out? I will say in the third round, he choked me. But I was like 1-0 or 2-0, and he was coming off 'The Ultimate Fighter', making his UFC debut, two weeks out from his UFC debut."