Sean O’Malley Denies Ducking Payton Talbott and Waits on Petr Yan
Sean O’Malley says he never turned down Payton Talbott for the White House card, and he is willing to fight him only if Petr Yan loses the belt. The former bantamweight champion made the case on the SuGuru Show after Talbott called him out from the Octagon.
Talbott stopped Deiveson Figueiredo in the first round at UFC 332 on Oct. 3 in Salt Lake City. That knockout followed a win over Henry Cejudo, and Talbott used the microphone to say O’Malley could not keep avoiding him. O’Malley is 20-3, with a no contest, and his last win was a second-round stoppage of Aiemann Zahabi at UFC Freedom 250 on June 14.
The ducking claim is the part O’Malley wanted settled first. “I don’t like bringing family into this, but I swear on my family, I did not get offered Payton Talbott at the White House,” O’Malley said. “If he could also swear that he did, then there was miscommunication somewhere on the line.”
He did not leave it as a paperwork dispute. “I feel like he made it up,” O’Malley said. “He called me out, and that sounds good.”
The timing he offered is tied to a title fight that is already booked. Yan defends the bantamweight belt against Merab Dvalishvili in a trilogy at UFC 333 on Oct. 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
Yan reclaimed the title from Dvalishvili by unanimous decision at UFC 323 in December. Dvalishvili had taken it from him in their first meeting in 2023.
O’Malley put his next opponent on that result. “Petr goes out there and loses, let’s squabble, me and Payton, let’s make it happen,” he said. “Petr goes out there and wins, I’m ducking him. I’m ducking him for a tougher fight. I’m ducking him for Petr Yan.”
That is a blunt way of saying the champion comes first. O’Malley beat Yan by split decision at UFC 280 in 2022, and he has been calling for the rematch since the Zahabi win. Dvalishvili has beaten O’Malley twice, including a third-round guillotine at UFC 316, so a third meeting with Merab is the harder sell inside the UFC.
He also tried to flip the size argument. “Why would I fight this f*cking tall, lengthy, good striker when I could fight Petr Yan?” O’Malley said. Talbott is listed at 5-foot-10. O’Malley is 5-foot-11, so the height gap is small, and the point was style rather than a listed inch.
O’Malley then aimed the short-fighter talk at Talbott’s recent opponents, not at Talbott. “He’s fighting the guys that are offering him, and they just happen to be under 5’5″, and coming up from 125,” O’Malley said. “Tough motherf**kers, Deiveson Figueiredo, 12 years ago. Henry Cejudo did a pretty good job when he used to fight.”
Figueiredo and Cejudo are former champions, and Talbott has now finished both. O’Malley did not treat those wins as empty. He still ranked them below a title rematch with Yan, who is the man holding the belt on Oct. 24.
The close of the interview was half compliment and half joke. “I like his style, inside the octagon, and outside the octagon,” O’Malley said. “He’s got swag. We’ll see if I can slip and slide, maybe duck and not get that fight. That’d be sick, huh? Said no one ever.”
Nothing in the comments books the fight. O’Malley is saying the White House offer never reached him, that he likes the callout, and that Talbott is the backup if Dvalishvili wins the trilogy. If Yan keeps the belt, O’Malley wants the champion, and Talbott stays in line behind that rematch.
