Former UFC champion Sean O’Malley has carved out his own niche in MMA but says he spent too much time following in the footsteps of Conor McGregor.
McGregor, the first-ever simultaneous two-division champion in UFC history and the biggest box office star ever seen in the sport, has left a firm imprint on the sport since he made his Octagon debut back in 2013 with his influence seen not just in his combat sports peers but also in a variety of other sports across the globe.
But O’Malley, who employed a similar stand-up style to McGregor during his rise up the bantamweight ranks, says that he spent too much on energy early in his career trying to emulate the success of the Irishman.
“One hundred percent,” O’Malley told the Between Rounds podcast, via MMA Junkie, of whether he considered McGregor to be a role model.
“The way he carried himself into fights, the confidence to say what he thought was going to happen,” he explained. “‘I’m going to knock this dude out in Round 2.’ I got a lot out of that. I was like, ‘OK, I can be confident like that.’ I feel like I got lost, almost, in a sense, where I wanted to be like Conor too much instead of being like myself.”
O’Malley was keen to note that this strategy was successful early, particularly throughout his rivalry with Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera, but he said that he felt he was not being himself during his two-fight series with Merab Dvalishvili.
“That was my second title defense, and I was like, ‘I want this to be big,'” O’Malley said of his first fight with Dvalishvili, in which he was defeated by unanimous decision.
“I didn’t feel like it was big. I didn’t feel like Merab was a big name. I had to force it. It was at The Sphere. I felt like I had to create something and I didn’t like how that made me feel, in a sense, because I didn’t hate Merab.
“I would have loved to knock him out,” he added. “I feel like I made that one too personal, and I didn’t like that. But that kind of the only time I really forced anything. The ‘Chito’ beef I felt was real. I didn’t like that. That was a real one, but the Merab one I feel like I forced a little bit.”
O’Malley, though, admitted that there is a large entertainment dynamic that contributes to success in the UFC — but he said that this must come with a fighter’s own true personality woven in.
“I do think there’s an entertainment aspect that UFC people need to kinda do to become a superstar,” he said. “You gotta be yourself, and then you can add on to that a little bit. Yeah, finding that balance. There’s not someone there to teach you. There’s not a book.”
