UFC: Sean O’Malley says he’s ‘not humbled’ by first loss to ‘lucky’ Marlon Vera

Sean O’Malley has broken his silence on his first professional loss, a first-round TKO by Marlon “Chito” Vera at UFC 252. And if you thought he was “humbled”, he was just messing with you.

The 25-year-old American posted an image on Instagram with that particular word as the caption, leading many to think he had perhaps accepted the defeat in Las Vegas. But “Sugar” (12-1) railed at “lucky” Vera (16-6-1) in a rant on “The Timbo Sugar Show” with his coach Tim Welch.

“Dude, I knock out Eddie Wineland, I peace,” O’Malley said. “That was easy. He gets lucky and beats me and jumps up like he just [expletive] won the lottery, that just showed me what kind of a b**** he was.

“The thing is we picked the date. We picked the time. We both walked out and then it doesn’t matter what the [expletive] happens. Whoever wins, however they win, wins. So he won. It sucks.

“I look at him and I’m like, he’s not that good. And I [expletive] lost to him. That’s the most frustrating thing. And that ‘humbled’ post was a [expletive] joke, so everyone commenting stupid s***, I’m not humbled.”

O’Malley suffered a serious ankle injury in the fight and couldn’t stand on his left leg. He fell to the ground late in the first round and “Chito” smelled blood, swarming him with ground and pound and getting the finish.

“Even in the back warming up, everything was perfect,” said O’Malley, who was stretchered out of the arena. “I’m in good shape. I’m breaking this [expletive], hundred per cent in my mind. Get back there, doing our warm-up, everything’s going perfect. About five minutes before they said, ‘All right, we’re gonna walk,’ I go, ‘Hey [movement coach] Brandon [Harris], do you think you can loosen up my ankle brace, it’s tight.’ So he’s sitting in the back, loosening up my ankle braces.

“We walked out, everything felt good. Got in there, was in front of him, I’m like, in my mind, ‘This is easy. He’s slow. He can’t hit me.’ … I remembered the pain that I had in the top of my foot, the Lisfranc surgery, had the same pain, but all around my ankle. I remember dragging my foot up against the cage like, ‘[expletive]’. Even still, didn’t feel in danger.”

An X-ray on O’Malley’s leg and ankle came back negative for broken bones, according to ESPN, but he will undergo an MRI once the swelling goes down to determine if there is ligament or tendon damage.

“Let’s look at his career in five years, let’s look at mine,” O’Malley added. “I’m going to be [expletive] world champion, he’s going to be a [expletive] journeyman. That’s just what his style is. He wins some, he loses some.

“He’s slow, but he’s gritty, so he’s going to be able to finish some people after they beat him up for a while. The way his pace was, super slow like that, and I was exploding into shots, I wasn’t gonna get tired and I was just gonna beat his ass.

“I don’t know if I was gonna get a finish in that first round. He was tough and he was patient, which was fine, because that’s easier for me, he wasn’t doing anything, he was standing there. It [expletive] sucks.”