Sean O’Malley’s coach wants a January UFC return

Sean O’Malley is one of the biggest stars in the world of mixed martial arts today and his coach ideally would like him to return to the cage to kick off 2026. This was mentioned by Tim Welch during a recent interview that he took part in on The Ariel Helwani Show, as Welch said,

“Hopefully in January. Hopefully, yeah in January. We’re kind of keeping him ready. Just got done sparring right now, so we’re starting to get his body ready to go for a battle… I mean gosh, there’s a bunch of fights that could happen.”

“But I really want; if things work out the way they should work out and ‘Sug’ gets to fight for the title again in the warehouse, you’ve got Song Yadong, who’s a great match — that would be an exciting fight. You’ve got the [Aiemann] Zahabi kid. The Zahabi kid, he beat Pedro Munhoz, he beat Jose Aldo, he beat [Marlon] ‘Chito’ Vera. I think that’s another exciting fight that we could look really good in.”

Sean O’Malley called out by controversial UFC fighter

Sean O’Malley is someone who always finds himself on the receiving end of callouts, and he was put in the crosshairs of a former featherweight who is now looking to make waves at 135 pounds. That combatant in question is Bryce Mitchell, who recently put out the feelers for a fight that he called ‘city boy versus country boy.’

Bryce Mitchell made this callout during a recent interview with Helen Yee and described the fight as the biggest fight and his biggest potential opponent here. While Mitchell touted a potential bout with ‘Suga’ as a great matchup, it was a fight booking he did not seem one hundred percent confident would come to fruition next.

This is in the context of realizing he is new to the division, but Mitchell has a confident vision of his next few years in the bantamweight class that will see him matching well against the upper echelon of the weight category. Mitchell is coming off a statement victory in his bantamweight debut as he bested Said Nurmagomedov on points.