Raulian Paiva feels he knows the way to beat Sean O’Malley at UFC 269.
There is an exciting bantamweight matchup on the card this weekend at UFC 269. Sean O’Malley will be taking on Raulian Paiva on the main card portion of the event. O’Malley has been successful at making himself known in the MMA world. He is a fan favorite both inside the cage and out. However, his opponent Paiva feels that he may be too much show and not enough fight.
Paiva spoke to MMA Fighting a bit about his game plan coming into this bout against O’Malley, and how he feels he can be victorious.
“He lost when he fought a top fighter. Marlon Vera is very experienced, has many fights in the UFC, he put pressure over him and that’s it,” Paiva said. “He wimped out, got desperate and that happened, he got TKO’d. … There are fighters that only know how to hit but drop in performance when they are under pressure, and that’s what I see in O’Malley.
Paiva came to the UFC in 2019 after a win on The Dana White Contender Series. He has now won three in a row, most recently a decision victory over Kyler Phillips in July. O’Malley has had a similar journey as Paiva. He was awarded a contract on DWCS and has now only lost one fight in the UFC. Despite his stellar record, Paiva sees holes in O’Malley’s game and plans to expose them.
“If you give him space he’ll do his thing, but he’ll start to get desperate and make mistakes more and more if you don’t give him space,” Paiva said. “That’s basically what I’ll do. I’ll make him make mistakes at his own game. I’m going there to pressure him from the first to the third round, if we get to the third round.”
UFC 269 takes place on Dec. 11 live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Do you think Raulian Paiva’s game plan for defeating Sean O’Malley will work at UFc 269?
