UFC 264: Sean O’Malley thinks referee Herb Dean saved Kris Moutinho ‘a couple of years on his life’ after late TKO
- ‘Sugar’ lands 249 strikes – the most ever in a UFC bantamweight fight – before Herb Dean finally calls it off late in the third round
- O’Malley calls out No 3-ranked bantamweight Rob Font after putting the division on notice with impressive display
Sean O’Malley got a late stoppage over Kris Moutinho but boy, did he have to work for it.
A late replacement bantamweight opponent who was making his debut, the neon-green haired Moutinho had nothing to lose on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The 28-year-old American (9-5) kept marching forward with reckless abandon for almost three rounds, absorbing a historic amount of strikes until referee Herb Dean decided he had seen enough, stopping it on the feet with 27 seconds left at the T-Mobile Arena.
“Kris is a tough [expletive],” O’Malley (14-1) told Joe Rogan in his post-fight interview in the Octagon. “He took this fight on 11 days’ notice when a lot of people in the UFC wouldn’t take it. Kris is a bad [expletive].
“Shout out to the Phoenix Suns, I was going for a little dribble-dribble, trying to finish him.”
O’Malley said “I was and I wasn’t” surprised that Dean waived it off with Moutinho still on his feet. “That’s a lot of head damage. He might not think that’s a good stoppage, but it might have saved him a couple of years on his life,” he added.