Sean O'Malley Analyzes Fight-Ending Sequence at UFC 292: 'I’m a Sniper'

Sean O'Malley is highly-confident in his skills — and for good reason.

The counter right hand that dropped Aljamain Sterling in the second round of their title bout at UFC 292 was a thing of beauty, and it set the stage for O’Malley to claim the bantamweight throne on Saturday night at TD Garden in Boston.

“Punching backwards is a skill not a lot of people possess and I can punch going backwards and I knew he was going to be pressuring me and I know he likes to throw to shoot,” O’Malley said at the UFC 292 post-fight press conference. “He likes to throw for me to counter so he can shoot under. So I knew he was going to be lunging in with shots.

“It really wasn’t even a bad punch that he threw, it’s just I’m that f—-ing accurate. I sniped him. I’ve been saying all week, I’m a sniper. I’m going to snipe his chin. I’m going to find it and there we were. That’s definitely a punch I visualized all week.”

Making the victory that much more impressive was the fact that O’Malley wasn’t able to work on his grappling during training camp due to an upper body injury. However, it wasn’t something that was going to keep him from fighting for a UFC belt.

“I haven’t grappled in six weeks. I had a muscle strain and I literally couldn’t grapple for six weeks, couldn’t MMA spar,” O’Malley said. “I was the main event in Boston. There was no chance I was pulling out. But we haven’t grappled in six weeks. Six weeks [ago] today, I had a muscle strain right under my rib and I couldn’t grapple. So coming into this fight and fighting Aljo, when I did interviews, I was saying, ‘Life or death: I cannot get taken down,’ because I didn’t know if it would hold up – and it’s f—-ing sore right now.”

Ultimately, O’Malley was able to thwart Sterling’s attempts to grapple, and that allowed him to find the ideal opening to finish the fight.

“I thought the longer the fight stayed on the feet, the better chance I had of knocking him out,” O’Malley said. “I knew I’d get him frustrated, him not being able to grab me, I thought he was way too confident that he was going to be able to come in and just grab me. I don’t know if he’s ever sparred someone as good as I am or fought someone as good as I am.

“I truly believe I am a level above most people in the striking department and I just felt like he was very confident because he had never experienced—It wasn’t his fault, he’d just never experienced someone that fast in front of him.”