Sean O’Malley includes Ilia Topuria in MMA striker Mount Rushmore
Sean O'Malley named his top four strikers in the UFC.
UFC bantamweight champion O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) “easily” included himself when naming his Mount Rushmore of strikers on BS w/ Jake Paul, and mentioned three other names.
One of them being featherweight champion Ilia Topuria (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC), who O’Malley thinks a superfight with is inevitable down the line.
“I’m up there,” O’Malley said. “Max (Holloway) is really good – Max is super sick. Ilia Topuria, his striking is really good. Me, Max, Ilia, (Israel) Adesanya.”
Topuria claimed the featherweight title with a knockout of Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 298. “El Matador” has been linked to a title defense against former champ Max Holloway, who’s coming off an incredible last-second knockout of lightweight contender Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 in April.
O’Malley, who dethroned Aljamain Sterling to claim the bantamweight title by knockout, notched his first title defense by putting on a striking clinic vs. Marlon Vera at UFC 299. He is gearing up for his next title defense against streaking bantamweight Merab Dvalishvili later in the year.
Boxing remains part of O’Malley’s goals, but if he gets past Dvalishvili, he has the featherweight title in his sights.
“I truly do want to get a boxing fight,” O’Malley said. “I’m not super set on that to where I’m going to be like f*cking mad if it doesn’t happen. I do think it’ll be interesting – especially if I knock Merab out, Ryan (Garcia) does his thing, I think there’s a f*cking sweet fight there.
“If it doesn’t happen, not that worried about it. I want to go out there beat Merab, if Max and Ilia fight, I would like to move up to ’45 and fight the winner of that.”
