Sean O'Malley Eyes Bantamweight GOAT Status If Title Run Delivers

Sean O'Malley isn't ducking the question of who owns the bantamweight throne — he just wants to answer it with his fists. Two years removed from losing his belt to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306, and then dropping the rematch by submission, "Suga" has stacked back-to-back wins over Song Yadong and Aiemann Zahabi (14-3) to climb back into the mix. His overall octagon ledger now sits at 12-3 with a no-contest, and he's openly framing the rest of his career as a run at all-time-great status.

O'Malley laid out the math in a UFC on Paramount+ interview: he beat Aljamain Sterling (26-5) and Petr Yan on the way up, two of the three names he counts in the division's GOAT conversation. The third is Dvalishvili, who's defended the belt three times and holds two wins over O'Malley. If Yan can knock Dvalishvili off, O'Malley figures a decisive win over Yan would give him victories over two of the three men he considers the best 135ers ever.

The Road Runs Through Abu Dhabi

The whole plan hinges on a date circled in red: Oct. 24, when Yan and Dvalishvili run it back a third time in the co-main event of UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi. O'Malley edged Yan in a razor-thin 2022 decision, so a Yan title reign is the cleanest path back to gold for him — Dvalishvili has already solved the O'Malley puzzle twice. The MMA math only works if the trilogy breaks his way.

O'Malley isn't shy about the age clock either. He'll turn 32 in October and says he wants his 30s to look like his 20s: active, focused, and pointed at greatness. He rattled off the names still on his hit list — a Dvalishvili rematch when the timing makes sense, another crack at Yan, plus Umar Nurmagomedov and Cory Sandhagen. Plenty of resume-building left, in his telling.

There's a note of gratitude underneath the ambition. O'Malley talked about the grind out of Arizona, the countless gym prospects who never sniff the UFC, and the ones who win a couple and vanish. He's cashed the checks, built the stardom, and done what he set out to do — become one of the promotion's biggest draws. The two Dvalishvili losses, he admits, plateaued a rocket-ship career.

That's the part worth watching. O'Malley believes his ceiling is higher than where he stalled out, and he's treating this stretch as a second act rather than a slow fade. Whether the belt comes back is another question entirely, but the framework is clear: beat the men who beat the best, and let the GOAT debate sort itself out. Oct. 24 gives him his first real read on how the pieces might fall.