Payton Talbott has been the talk of the town in the Bantamweight division since shutting off Deiveison Figueiredo at UFC 332 last weekend. That was Talbott’s third win in a row, following decisions over Henry Cejudo and Felipe Lima.
Talbott’s first round stoppage over Figueiredo, a former flyweight champ with a reputation for durability, has excited a lot of folks in the sport. Ex champs Henry Cejudo and Daniel Cormier, independently of each other, have talked him up as future star. And Cormier, who was on the call last night, went as far as to say Talbott vs. Sean O’Malley is a fight that needs to happen as soon as possible.
O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch didn’t love what he was hearing from DC that night. He expressed that on his YouTube channel (I guess everyone has one of those now).
“I think one of the commentators said, ‘I think Sean’s waiting for the title shot. No, that’s not happening. Come on, now. Don’t be waiting for a title shot, you fight Payton Talbott,’ who hasn’t been ranked,” Welch said, referring to the UFC 332 broadcast. “And it’s like, DC, do you remember back when you were fighting for the title, the pay difference? How much more you’d get paid fighting for the title, the world championship, compared to fighting a No. 11 ranked guy now? I wonder if he remembers that.”
Welch also took umbrage at a claim from Cejudo about how dangerous Talbott was in the division right now.
”Henry Cejudo is saying that no one wants to fight Payton Talbott and I wonder how true that is because I guarantee you Marcus [McGhee] would fight Payton Talbott. I guarantee it. He’d be licking his chops for that fight.”
McGee also won at UFC 332, defeating short notice opponent Anthony Romero by first round TKO.
Welch also revealed that he and O’Malley were waiting to see what happens at UFC 333 on October 24, when Petr Yan defends his belt against Merab Dvalishvili — a rematch from last December. Welch suggested that, if Dvalishvili wins, the chance of O’Malley fighting for the belt next evaporates (since O’Malley has already lost to Dvalishvili twice).
If Yan wins, though, Welch likes O’Malley’s chances of being on deck for a title shot. O’Malley beat Yan by razor thin split decision back in 2022.
“If Petr loses, dude, ‘Suga’ vs. Payton Talbott is a sick, sick f*cking fight, dude,” Welch added.
And Welch seems pretty confident that his guy would win that fight. Well, what else is he going to say, though?
“Because Payton, the way he fakes his uppercuts, the way he stutters into his jab, stutters into his one-two, it’s almost like he fights just like ‘Suga’, just a titch slower,” Welch said. “Just a titch slower and he comes out and he pressures people and I just want that fight to happen one day. But I swear on my my father’s life, that fight wasn’t offered to us.”
At the end of this statement, Welch is referring to Talbott’s claim that O’Malley ducked him as a potential opponent on the White House card in June. Both camps seem pretty adamant about their claims in this one. The UFC surely wasn’t telling fibs to folks about who was and wasn’t offered a fight, were they?
Whether the UFC were planning an O’Malley vs. Talbott fight in the past or not, it’s clear now that these two young bantamweights can’t be kept separate forever. I’m team Cormier this one, hoping we see this fight sooner rather than later.
