Things got fiery between Petr Yan and Sean O’Malley in their first face-to-face staredown ahead of their UFC 280 clash.
Following the UFC 280 official press conference on Thursday, Yan and O’Malley fought in an intense moment with Jon Anik serving as the middleman. After about five seconds, Yan had enough of having O’Malley in his face and delivered a two-handed shove to the chest of “Sugar,” which got a big reaction from the fans in Abu Dhabi.
Yan walked off stage, while a shirtless O’Malley continued to fire up the crowd.
Watch Yan shove the camera above.
The fighters also got into it during the press conference with Yan landing probably the best trash-talking shot. Yan was likely to land the best garbage-talking shot after O’Malley stated he would “smash Yan” in their fight and Yan claiming that Yan lies about his height.
“It’s not about the height,” Yan said. “Just look at him, he’s like a whore on the side of the road.”
Even O’Malley had to laugh and give Yan credit for his one-liner.
” That was good, that’s good,” O’Malley stated.
Both fighters battle for the chance to earn their way to a shot at the bantamweight title against the winner of Saturday’s championship bout between Aljamain Sterling and T.J. Dillashaw.
Yan is a former interim champion and undisputed champ who hopes to rebound from his split decision defeat to Sterling at April’s UFC 273. “No Mercy” was disqualified from the title after landing an illegal knee on Sterling in UFC March . However, she managed to win interim gold seven months later with a victory over Cory Sandhagen at UFC 267..
O’Malley has been unbeaten in four of his previous appearances. However, in O’Malley’s most recent fight against Pedro Munhoz in UFC 276, an accidental eye poke resulted in the fight being declared a no-contest. This was an unfortunate end to what had been O’Malley’s largest octagon challenge to date.
