Payton Talbott Willing to 'Put My Time In' for Desired Sean O'Malley Matchup

Payton Talbott is ready to take on tough competition to climb his way up to a dream matchup against Sean O'Malley.

Talbott delivered a lopsided beatdown of Cameron Saaiman to score a second round TKO win at UFC on ESPN 53. With his second consecutive finish in as many UFC outings, Talbott inched just a little bit closer to a potential clash against thereigning bantamweight champ, whom the Reno native had named as his “dream matchup” after his Contender Series win last year. Talbott is willing to take on tough competition to make it into reality.

“I just need to keep having performances like that [to get the O’Malley fight], do my dirty work and just keep eating dogs like that,” Talbott told media after the fight (video via MMAjunkie.com). “I know I need to put my time in and solidify myself against game opponents, so I’m more than willing to do that.”

While he is currently undefeated, Talbott called for a chance to correct a loss against one “Ryan Hammers,” who seemingly beat him in a streetfight when he was a teenager. Talbott then went on to mention former champ Dominick Cruz as a potential opponent.

“I don’t really know, I want my ‘0’ back against Ryan Hammers. Took my goose egg when I was like 17 years old on the street,” Talbott said. “I’m gonna go run that back at some point, but I don’t really know. I don’t know too many people in my division so maybe like Dominick Cruz.”

Talbott began to land visible damage on Saaiman from the very first shot he threw and continued to do so until the South African crumbled. While he was somewhat surprised with the quickness of the finish, Talbott was throwing with the intent to hurt Saaiman, who he knew had undergone a recent surgery.

“I was gonna go after his head pretty hard because I heard he had part of his face reconstructed,” Talbott said. “So that was like part of the gameplan and I knew I was gonna be able to do some damage to it, but I didn’t think it was going to be that early.”