Sean O'Malley Believes 'Scared' Marlon Vera Got Lucky in Their First Fight

Sean O'Malley has doubled down on his stance of not accepting his lone professional loss.

The UFC bantamweight champion suffered his only pro defeat against Marlon Vera back in 2020, a loss he refuses to accept to this day. Vera hurt O’Malley’s lead leg with a low kick in the opening frame and followed it up with vicious ground-and-pound to earn a TKO victory. According to O’Malley, the kick damaged his peroneal nerve by fluke.

O’Malley is now scheduled to defend his title against Vera in a rematch in the main event of UFC 299 in March. “Sugar” refuses to believe that Vera will be able to damage his nerve again, but he is willing to accept even the first loss if history is repeated.

O’Malley, who sounds extremely confident going into the rematch, believes Vera is scared becaue the Ecuadorian knows the first win was a “fluke.”

“Like, it doesn’t happen that much. And if it happens again, then I’ll never — I’ll say, ‘Alright, I lost twice.’ If he kicks me in the nerve again, if it happens again, I’ll say, ‘Alright, he’s doing some s—. He knows what he’s doing,’” O’Malley said on "The MMA Hour.”

“But I feel like it was so lucky, and he knows it. He truly, deep down knows it. That was so lucky. He’s genuinely scared of me. I know you’re watching ‘Chito,’ you know I’m way too fast for you and you ain’t going to be able to do s—t to me, bud. He knows it. ... I think he’s very nervous for this fight, 100 percent. He’s too slow. What are you going to do? I’m going to piece him up.”

Vera landed the title shot in large part due his history with O’Malley. After being outgrappled in a split-decision loss to Cory Sandhagen this past March, “Chito” bounced back with a decision win over Pedro Munhoz in August. O’Malley was not impressed by his rival’s performance against Sandhagen.

“I hope that ‘Chito’ shows up,” O’Malley said. “That’ll be funny. It was super weird, because I know ‘Chito’ is good. He’s a black belt, he’s good off his back. I thought he was. I thought he was a good, decent wrestler. It was just, yeah, that was a super, super off night. It was crazy. It was embarrassing. Like, I’m sure he hates to even think about that fight, because that was so embarrassing. He just got taken down, couldn’t get up. Cory is not a wrestler.”