Sean O’Malley is now certain about Pedro Munhoz.
The bantamweight contenders fought to a disappointing no contest this past Saturday at UFC 276 after Munhoz was unable to continue due to an accidental eye poke in the second round. Munhoz revealed on The MMA Hour that he had a cornea injury and that he was not happy with O’Malley’s praising the situation.
If that’s the case, Munhoz definitely won’t be happy with O’Malley’s latest comments on the situation from his BrOMalley Show podcast.
“Pedro said I poked him in the eye, which I didn’t,” O’Malley said. He said that he poked him in the eye twice, although his eyes were closed. He thought that the poke he received in his eye the first time was a poke. That’s the one that swole his left eye shut. This is the one that caused him the most pain, as I hit him in his eye. Actually, my knuckle still hurts from the punch. Boom, in the eye socket.
“I punched him in his eye and threw an elbow kick. The belt line was hit. I’ve kicked people in the nuts before. The cup is mine. I did not hit him in the nuts. It was a false foul. He didn’t take my punch in the stomach, but he did not hold onto his eyes. So he was taking that low body shot to take time for his eye that I punched. That was a fake nut shot that did not hit him in the nuts. He would not have been able to hold his nuts had it struck him in the nuts. It would have hurt him more. It would have been a nut shot and people react different to nut shots. The shot was not nut-free. After a right-hand .”
, it was a great body shot.
A handful of fighters questioned Munhoz’s reaction on fight night, including Bryce Mitchell, Sergio Pettis, and Randy Brown, the latter of whom tweeted, “He packed it up.” However, others supported Munhoz, with Casey O’Neill tweeting, “I urge every fan who boos an eye poke to take an eye poke, then continue fighting another killer.”
But O’Malley felt that the foul was not worth the effort to stop the fight, which he believed was trending strongly in his favor.
” “The second round barely poked him in his eye,” O’Malley stated. “Not enough to stop the fight. Right after the fight, I apologized. I’ve poked someone in the eye before in sparring. Never in a fight. I poked someone in the eye before and it feels gross. You don’t want to poke someone in the eye. I’ve been poked in the eye and I’ve poked someone in the eye. It was not an ****** poke to the eye. That was, like, brushed up. There’s no way.
“You can’t say because obviously we’re not him, but there’s no way that he could not continue that fight. Not a chance. He robbed me of a highlight-reel KO that I trained 12 weeks for because I was getting the better of him. His leg kicks were causing me concern. His leg kicks were hurting him, 100 percent. His shin was hurting me and he would sometimes land with his feet on my shin. He was throwing 100 percent power kicks with his feet into my shin.”
O’Malley is a well-known MMA fighter. 11 all of his 15 victories have been by way of KO/TKO. He entered the Munhoz fight coming off of three straight knockout victories and owns a first-round finish of one-time UFC bantamweight title challenger Eddie Wineland.
Other side, Munhoz lost four out of five previous fights before UFC 276,. O’Malley thinks that Munhoz made an economic decision.
“He did not land one shot at the body,” O’Malley stated. “He didn’t land one head shot. He didn’t land one head shot. He landed a couple of decent leg kicks, but it didn’t change the fight at all. My legs felt completely fine. I guarantee his legs hurt worse than mine from his leg kicks that he was throwing. Zero landed head shots. Zero took body shots. So when he wanted the opportunity to say, ‘Hey doctor, save me. I can’t see.’ Instead of waiting, he didn’t have to tell the doctor, ‘I can’t see’ right away. He wanted out of that fight.
“What was he going to do? The leg kicks weren’t working. Couldn’t land a body shot, couldn’t land a head shot. He was cracked with my right hand. I kicked him in the back, turned to his body and landed on the head. This m***********’s confused. … He didn’t want to be on the highlight reel. He didn’t want to be an Eddie Wineland. He did not want to become a Paiva. He was determined to get out as soon as possible. He wanted another UFC fight. He turned on his lights and they said, “You know what?” That might be it.’ So for him, he’s like, ‘Well, I can get paid here and I can probably get another fight.'”
