Sean O’Malley Claims He Would Have Urged Petr Yan To Fight With No Emotion At UFC 273
UFC bantamweight contender, Sean O’Malley has claimed that if he was to follow through will his agreement to corner Petr Yan at UFC 273 last weekend, he would have urged the former champion to fight without the emotion, after the Russian suffered a split decision loss to champion, Aljamain Sterling.
Co-headlining UFC 273 at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, Yan suffered his second career loss against champion, Sterling, in a failed attempt to successfully unify the bantamweight belts in a close, split judging title unification loss.
Prior to the event, however, Yan – who had dealt with visa issues regarding his corner for the fight against Sterling, received offers from both the surging, above mentioned, O’Malley – as well as former undisputed flyweight and bantamweight champion, Henry Cejudo to serve in his corner for the co-main event re-run.
Sean O’Malley is currently targeting a summer Octagon return
Failing to ever materialize, O’Malley has now claimed that if he was to follow through on claims to corner Yan, he would have urged the Dudinka striker to settle down and not fight so emotionally against Sterling.
“(Petr) Yan’s takedown defense, other than the two times he got his back taken, is so elite,” Sean O’Malley reflected on his podcast. “The hips, hand on the head, he’s got some sick takedown defense. But he fought so emotional from the beginning of the fight. So emotional.”
“Those looping punches… he (Petr Yan) fought super emotional,” Sean O’Malley continued “I should have been in his corner and told him, Yo, Petr, settle down, bud.’ I’ll take that ‘L’. That was my fault.”
As well as pointing out how he may have coached Yan during the fight, O’Malley issued praise to champion, Sterling – insisting that he was impressed with the mindset on display from the Uniondale native amid the fallout from their first fight back in March of last year.
“It was impressive, (Aljamain) Sterling’s mindset going into that fight,” Sean O’Malley said. “Considering what had already happened to him in the previous fight… Towards the end of the (fourth) round, he was getting manhandled. At the end of the fight, for him to go in with that mindset of not letting that affect him, was super impressive. It showed championship mindset for sure.” (Transcribed by Middleeasy)
