Jake Paul responds to Sean O'Malley's callout to "save UFC 303" after Ariel Helwani's bombshell about Conor McGregor fight
It appears Jake Paul is keen on facing Sean O'Malley in the cage at UFC 303 in case the Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler fight falls through. The YouTuber-turned-boxer recently responded to O'Malley's callout on social media and agreed to an MMA fight before his boxing match against Mike Tyson later this year.
While fans were hyped to see McGregor return to action after almost three years away, MMA journalist Ariel Helwani recently reported that the Irishman's comeback bout seems to be "very much in limbo" due to unknown reasons and the promotion is scrambling to look for a replacement fight to save the UFC 303 card.
With the UFC 303 main event slot potentially open, O'Malley recently took to X and called out Paul to "save" the card. He wrote:
"I'll fight @jakepaul to save UFC 303."
'The Problem Child' was keen on accepting the fight and responded to O'Malley's callout stating:
"MMA fight before Tyson @PFLMMA."
In a follow-up post, the former Disney star doubled down on his intention to fight 'Suga' in the cage and wrote:
"100% will kill O'Malley in MMA. He's a small man. PFL vs. UFC June 29th."
When Sean O'Malley predicted how a boxing match against Jake Paul would go
Back in 2021, Sean O'Malley broke down how a potential boxing match against Jake Paul would go down. The UFC bantamweight champion admitted that Paul was a significantly bigger opponent and could pack quite a lot of power behind his punches. However, O'Malley stated that he was a faster and more accurate striker.
During an episode of the TimboSugarShow podcast, 'Suga' was asked if he would ever consider boxing Paul and if he stood a chance against the mercurial YouTuber-turned-boxer. He replied:
"Me vs. Jake Paul in a boxing match. I will say Jake probably has more power than me. Maybe. I mean, if I were to throw just a straight hit, he might hit harder than me. He's quite a bit bigger guy. When it comes to speed I think I would probably take that."
O'Malley continued:
"When it comes to timing, I've been training for 11 years, he's been training for three. I'm very, very impressed with how good he's gotten in such short time. Let's say he's what, 200lbs walking around? 190 when he fights. I walk around at 154, 155 right now... I don't think I personally could knock out Tyron Woodley if we entire boxed. But I do think I- I don't know."
Check out Sean O'Malley's comments on Jake Paul below (39:40):