Cory Sandhagen is not thinking about anything else until he faces Marlow Vera. However, in this day and age when it’s important to state your goals, he has started planning what will happen after the UFC San Antonio fight.
The 30-year-old fighter is ready for his fourth UFC fight in three years. He knows that winning against Vera won’t guarantee him a title shot, so he wants to defeat Vera and then challenge Sean O’Malley as well to get the opportunity of becoming the gold medalist of UFC.
I am very excited because if I beat Chito, it will get me closer to becoming the champion. After that, I don’t understand why the UFC won’t let me fight O’Malley as Cejudo and Sterling aren’t fighting till May. It doesn’t make sense!
“I believe that a fight between me and O’Malley would be even more exciting than the Sterling and Cejudo matchup, which is why I can’t quite figure out why it hasn’t happened yet. O’Malley had already become number one at bantamweight division after he won against the ex-champion Petr Yan last October.”
Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo will fight in the main event at UFC 288, so it is unlikely that O’Malley will get a title shot soon. Sandhagen thinks it would be better for him to stay active rather than sit around waiting.
Sandhagen said that O’Malley does not have a contract and hasn’t had any five-round fights even though he is talking like he has made some type of promise he can’t deliver on. Sandhagen thinks it isn’t fair for O’Malley to get the title shot, but would rather do his own fight with O’Malley afterwards. He doesn’t see any reason why this shouldn’t happen.
Before O’Malley won the close match against Yan, people argued that O’Malley had not fought strong opponents in his bantamweight fights even though he was known as a future champion.
Besides his win with Yan, none of O’Malley’s other triumphs were against anyone who is currently a UFC fighter.
Sandhagen thinks O’Malley needs to do more and gain more experience if he wants to fight for the title. That’s why a fight between them would help decide who is the most worthy contender in the division.
Sandhagen said that O’Malley had some easy wins on his way to the top and even beat Yan, but it was a close three-round fight. He has already experienced several main events and other co-main events lately. He thinks that he should be chosen as the next opponent for O’Malley since he isn’t even in line right now.
Sandhagen wants to have an awesome fight against Chito so the UFC can give him what he wants. But he knows that if he doesn’t get through Vera on Saturday, his future battle with O’Malley won’t happen. So for now, Sandhagen’s focus is just on beating Vera.
Two bantamweight fighters will fight each other inside a special cage called the octagon. The fight, which consists of five rounds, is very important for both of them as it can get them closer to battling for the championship title.
During his last four fights, Vera has been very tough and knocked out two UFC superstars – Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz. He’s shown that he can battle back from a bad round and finish the fight strong, but Sandhagen is warning him not to get into too much trouble by doing this.
Sandhagen said that it’s obvious the way he wins is only by one method and it’s not that trustworthy. He believes in his own strength to take hits and remain standing during fights.
In this sport, being tough and enduring is really important. It’s more interesting this way and it makes the sport cooler! I have what it takes to keep up with that kind of energy. To me, that’s not real martial arts – proper martial arts involves attacking skillfully without taking too many hits, and then hopefully one hit lands that knocks out your opponent. That’s a better way to win than just walking in and taking hits without trying to avoid them.
