Watch Sean O’Malley land vicious body kick to fellow UFC champ Alexandre Pantoja in new sparring footage
UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley has released footage of the closing moments of a 2016 sparring session with flyweight champ Alexandre Pantoja.
Earlier this week, O’Malley dropped a clip of their past sparring session showing him take Pantoja down, yet said he wouldn’t release the finish because “that’s just mean,” although he said that he finished Pantoja with a “liver kick” in the first round. However, “Sugar” must have changed his tune because on Friday morning, O’Malley did release the ending of their spar on social media, which showed the 135-pound champ landing a hard body kick, and then moments later, Pantoja calling an end to it.
Check out the video below.
1st round Tko 2016. undefeated. Henry in his corner he was crying. pic.twitter.com/MUmwTsUMN1
— Sean O'Malley (@SugaSeanMMA) May 10, 2024
Pantoja brought up the sparring session during UFC 301 fight week prior to his successful title defense against Steve Erceg. The current UFC flyweight king also described his version of what happened during an October 2023 appearance on The MMA Hour.
“I trained with O’Malley five, six years ago, and it never passed through my head that this guy would go to the UFC, take the belt and I take the belt too,” Pantoja said. “Very crazy. That’s why I called him to fight, just because that. He started to talk about my training with him two years ago, he started to talk about that, but let’s go back to five, six years ago when I go to the [MMA] Lab, before I arrive with [Henry] Cejudo, I made a 60-hour travel airplane flight. I never stepped in the Lab before, and I go to the Lab, do sparring with all the guys, and you need balls to do all that.
“O’Malley comes to me, ‘Hey, can I record this training?’ [I said], ‘Of course. Just when you’re finished, send me the video, because I can learn something, too.’ And he never passed the video to me. I called Cejudo [and said], ‘Hey, say to your friend to give me the video.’ And [Henry] Cejudo said, ‘Forget it. He’s never going to send that video to you.’
“You know why not. If you’re losing, you don’t show the video.”
Obviously, a lot has changed for both fighters since 2016, with both holding world titles at the same time. O’Malley is expected to defend his title later this year against Merab Dvalishvili, while Pantoja is targeting a return at the end of the year.