Sean O’Malley claims that T.J. Dillashaw turned down a jiu-jitsu match against him in Submission Underground (SUG).
Speaking on his podcast, The BrO’Malley Show, O’Malley claimed Dillashaw turned down the opportunity to face “The Suga Show” at SUG, a grappling organization featuring some of the best submission artists competing against each other, hosted by none other than former UFC fighter Chael Sonnen.
“He [T.J. Dillashaw] got offered a jiu-jitsu match against me from Chael Sonnen a couple months back and he said no,” said O’Malley.
This may be a response to what Dillashaw had recently said about O’Malley in which the 35-year-old disregarded O’Malley’s chances to become a future champion, claiming the latter to have too many holes in his fighting ability. He also said O’Malley was being fed easy fights due to his popularity and capacity to draw in big numbers for his fights.
“I don’t think he’ll [Sean O’Malley] become champion,” Dillashaw told Submission Radio. “He’s got too many holes and they’re feeding him the right fights because he’s a huge draw, right? They put him in the UFC pump up machine, they can do that to pretty much anyone if you have a little bit of character. If you can talk whatsoever or be a little bit color, they’ll pump you up and then he’s done a good job promoting himself. He’s done a really good job with that and it takes work, man.”
The 26-year-old fighter from Montana is coming off a record-breaking win in which he landed 230 out of 318 significant strikes attempted against Kris Moutinho, which was the most all-time for a three-round fight in the UFC’s bantamweight division. O’Malley was eight significant strikes short of breaking the all-time record across all weight divisions, a record which Nate Diaz holds against Donald Cerrone, where the Stockton native landed 238 out of 362 significant strikes at UFC 141 back in 2011.
As for Dillashaw, the 35-year-old fought back in July after two years out against fellow top-five bantamweight contender Cory Sandhagen in which Dillashaw won via a close split decision in a bout that many saw as a title eliminator fight. Dillashaw is expected to fight for the title next against the winner of Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan, which has been confirmed for UFC 267 in October.
Do you think that Sean O’Malley will fight T.J. Dillashaw in the future?
