For the first time in more than three years former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley will fight in a three-round bout at UFC 324. “Suga” takes on No. 5 ranked Song Yadong and hopes to rebound after back-to-back losses.
His last four training camps have been for five-round title bouts and he’s made adjustments in this camp for a shorter fight.
“My last four were all title fights and were like twelve-week fight camps and like seven weeks in, eight weeks in I was like I just want to fight. So, this one we started a lot later and I feel like I’m going to peak just f*cking perfect,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “The last time I fought three rounds was Petr Yan, October 2022.”
Having had four training camps for five-round fights in a row, O’Malley entered his UFC 324 fight camp in much better shape than he had in the past.
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“I remember when I first went pro. It’s like, okay, I have a fight in six weeks. I’m going to come in and do one round. We’re going to do one round for like two weeks. Then, in a few weeks we’ll do two in a row. And then eventually that last fight spar, that last spar we’ll do three in a row,” O’Malley said.
“Now we’re literally just starting with f*cking three [rounds]. And then each round, the rounds are just getting progressively higher output, higher pace. But going through those last four fight camps of f*cking five rounds was just crazy. That’s where experience is like a real f*cking thing.”
