Current flyweight champion of UFC, Alexandre Pantoja revealed that only one fighter would make him move up to the bantamweight category: Sean O’Malley.
Despite never being in the same division, the two athletes have already met at the UFC Performance Institute twice, even doing sparring training — this ended up starting a rivalry between them.
Dominant among the flyweights, the Brazilian has no plans to move up to bantamweight, but he also showed that he does not accept Sean’s provocations.
“I’m the flyweight champion, I want to stay here for a long time. I just thought about going up to face O’Malley because we have a history, he said some nonsense. I want to prove that I beat him in the gym and I can beat him in a real fight “, said Pantoja, in an interview with MMA Junkie.
In May of this year, when Pantoja defended his belt for the second time, O’Malley, who was bantamweight champion at the time, released a video of a sparring match between them, in which the American had the upper hand. The attitude left the Rio de Janeiro native quite irritated.
At the time, Alexandre considered moving up a category just to resolve the feud with Sean, but as he lost the title to Merab Dvashvili at UFC 306, the matter ended up cooling down.
Pantoja no UFC 310
After six months of rest, Alexandre Pantoja returns to the octagon next Saturday (7) to make his third defense of the flyweight title, against newcomer Kai Asakura, in the main fight of UFC 310.
Favorite in the duel against the Japanese, the Brazilian won the division belt in July 2023, by defeating Brandon Moreno. From then until UFC 301, in Rio de Janeiro, there were three fights in less than a year — all with five complete rounds.
Asakura got a UFC contract after becoming Rizin Fighting Federation flyweight champion in December last year with a second-round knockout. This was Kai’s last fight, who has 21 wins and four losses in his MMA record.