Cody Garbrandt still chasing ‘huge fight’ against Sean O’Malley

Cody Garbrandt is still interested in fighting Sean O’Malley as he believes it would be a massive fight.

Garbrandt and O’Malley are both former bantamweight champions who have feuded in the past. As Garbrandt was dropping down to flyweight, he and O’Malley got into with ‘Suga’ at the UFC 269 press conference, as the two even had a faceoff.

Since then, the talk of them fighting has died down. However, with O’Malley losing back-to-back fights against Merab Dvalishvili, ‘Suga’ is in a weird spot in the bantamweight division. With that, Garbrandt is hoping the two can finally fight if he can pull off an upset win on Saturday against Raoni Barcelos.

“He should’ve kept smoking because he looked like shit,” Garbrandt said at UFC Atlanta media day. “Sometimes you lose and you try and reinvent yourself, at the end of the day, you know who you are. You know what you have to do. I know I’m one of the best fighters in the world, but when you lose, you have everyone in your ear saying you need to do this or that. Just remember what got you there. That’s a fight, definitely, it’s a huge pay-per-view sale fight, Sean and I. I’m just focused on this fight on Saturday and we will let everything else fall in line.”

If Garbrandt does beat Barcelos, a bout against O’Malley does make sense. It would be a massive fight, and with both out of the title picture, it’s a fun fight that can be on a pay-per-view or headline a Fight Night card.

Sean O’Malley was previously not interested in Cody Garbrandt fight

Although Cody Garbrandt and Sean O’Malley got into it at a press conference, ‘Suga’ wasn’t as keen in fighting him.

Back in 2022, O’Malley explained why he wasn’t interested in fighting Garbrandt.

“Dude, Cody wants, he’s not getting that fight (with me). When he said it, you could see in his voice, ‘Oh, I want, uh’ – but that fight’s not happening. It doesn’t make sense for him to say that. I wonder if that’s CTE. He’s been knocked out five times in the last two years. That fights not happening, at least, not next. He needs to – it just doesn’t make sense, dude. It just literally doesn’t make sense,” O’Malley said on the TimboSugarShow.

However, perhaps a couple of years later, O’Malley has had a change of heart and the Garbrandt fight will take place.