Sean O’Malley Admits Making the Mistake of Emulating Conor McGregor a Bit Too Much

There are only a handful of fighters in UFC history who have actually backed up their intense trash talk with smooth performances inside the Octagon. And if anyone is the master of that warfare, then it has to be Conor McGregor. The former double is perhaps the greatest trash-talker in the history of the business with his tirades being on the scale of comical to almost diabolical at times. It is safe to say that the modern crop of fighters, including Sean O’Malley, has been influenced by the Irishman in the past. However, the former bantamweight champion recently revealed that in his pursuit of emulating his hero, O’Malley got lost in the way. 

Sean O’Malley Says He Lost His Original Self in Pursuit of Being Like Conor McGregor

It is safe to say that Dana White pushed O’Malley as the modern counterpart to McGregor. Flashy, verbose, and possessing sniper-like striking, ‘Suga’ was the perfect evolution in the line of slick strikers. However, that pressure eventually caught up to the former champion, who recently revealed that he used to view McGregor as an idol. 

In an interview posted on the YouTube channel of The MMA Lab (h/t MMA Junkie), O’Malley said, “One hundred percent (I viewed McGregor as a role model). The way he carried himself into fights, the confidence to say what he thought was going to happen – ‘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.”

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Sean O’Malley admits he lost focus by wanting to be like Conor McGregor 🔥🤯

“I feel like I lost, almost in a sense, where I wanted to be like Conor too much instead of being myself.”

(via @TheMMALAB ) pic.twitter.com/md5jGN6Zqy

— Red Corner MMA (@RedCorner_MMA) August 25, 2025

Fans will remember how McGregor used to predict the result of his fights and the exact round in which he was going to knock out his opponents. His trash-talk with Jose Aldo and Eddie Alvarez became famous for such instances. Moreover, the Irishman backed up his words with performances such as the 13-second KO of Aldo at UFC 194 and the elite demolition job of Alvarez at UFC 205 to become the first simultaneous double champ. 

The same sort of confidence worked for O’Malley for a while until he met his nemesis in the form of Merab Dvalishvili. Moreover, the top brass chose the duo’s bantamweight title bout to headline the company’s biggest event to date in the form of UFC 306 Noche, which had a production value of around $20 million. Moreover, he even admitted of forcing himself to hate the Georgian even though he did not harbor any ill-will. 

“That was my second title defense, and I was like, ‘I want this to be big,'” O’Malley revealed. “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. … I feel like I made that one too personal, and I didn’t like that.”

And the results spoke for themselves. Sean O’Malley lost his belt to Dvalishvili in an embarrassing outing and then failed to recapture the title in an immediate rematch at UFC 316 in June. Moreover, his second attempt at gold was even weaker than his initial bout at UFC Noche in September 2024. 

“I do think there’s an entertainment aspect that UFC people need to kinda do to become a superstar,” O’Malley 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.”

With the reigning bantamweight champion set for yet another defense against Cory Sandhagen at UFC 320, it will be interesting to see how Sean O’Malley bounces back after consecutive title-fight setbacks. Although he has revealed plans to move to 145lbs in the future, ‘Suga’ definitely has some fuel left for bantamweight and would make his return soon.