"It's gonna be a bigger payday" - Adrian Yanez weighs in on possible fight with Sean O'Malley
Adrian Yanez feels he has a lot to gain by fighting fellow surging bantamweight contender Sean O'Malley down the line. Both Yanez and O'Malley are entertaining fighters who are on impressive winning streaks inside the octagon. They are likely to cross paths in the future.
Adrian Yanez isn't convinced by Sean O'Malley's callout. 🔥
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Yanez feels he'd be more comfortable fighting Tony Kelly because his counter-punching style is the perfect strategy to tackle Kelly's mentality of rushing forward in fights. For this reason, Yanez feels it would be an easier matchup compared to a potential clash with 'Sugar' but claims there are other aspects to the fight which are more lucrative for him.
If the fight does come to fruition, Yanez believes it will earn him a bigger payday. If he manages to get past a popular name like Sean O'Malley, Yanez feels he'll establish himself as a legitimate challenger and will also bag bigger paychecks going forward:
"Sean O'Malley, that'd be a great fight as well. That would be an extra pay boost on my end so of course, to me they both have upsides to it because one, I get a great fight against Tony Kelly, a guy who I feel would be... stylistically, it would be a great fight for me because he'll come forward and I love countering and he's going to wake up like he's going to over commit on a shot and I counter him, I walk away with my hands up and it's a great fight. With Sean O'Malley, I know it's going to be a bigger payday... then on top of that knocking Sean O'Malley out will only give me another bigger pay bump so of course yes, the Sean O'Malley fight would be great too," Yanez told Sherdog.com.
Check out the interview below:
Sean O'Malley doesn't mind facing unranked fighters like Adrian Yanez despite breaking into the bantamweight top 15
Sean O'Malley broke into the bantamweight top15 by picking up a TKO victory over Raulian Paiva at UFC 269. Ahead of the fight, he expressed interest in a potential clash with Yanez.
@SugaSeanMMA @ me next time. twitter.com/SugaSeanMMA/st…
Although he rightly predicted that he'd break into the top 15 by beating Paiva, O'Malley insisted he's got no problem facing unranked fighters like Yanez down the line:
"You know, if I get ranked 15, 14, whatever after this fight, you know, I already called out Adrian Yanez, and he’s not ranked, and I have no issue fighting an unranked guy if I’m ranked," O'Malley said.
The UFC is yet to book 'Sugar's next matchup. It'll be interesting to see what lies ahead for Sean O'Malley.