ABU DHABI – Cory Sandhagen admits he’ll spiritually be within the nook of the bantamweight champion at UFC 306.
Ought to he defeat Umar Nurmagomedov after Saturday’s UFC on ABC 7 in Abu Dhabi, Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) thinks he’ll align himself properly for a crack at title gold.
Sandhagen isn’t significantly eager about a backup position, however plans to attend and root exhausting for Sean O’Malley to defeat Merab Dvalishvili at Noche UFC, the Sept. 14 pay-per-view at Sphere in Las Vegas. His motivation for partiality is self-benefit, after all.
“Yeah, I’m undoubtedly rooting for O’Malley,” Sandhagen advised MMA Junkie on Tuesday. “That’s undoubtedly the larger battle. That’s a battle that folks have been asking for endlessly. I believe that me and him go right into a cage and it’s simply going to be fireworks. It’s going to be so technical and so expert, tremendous athletic. That’s what the followers wish to see actually, actually dangerous. I’m going to get this win. O’Malley, get your self a win, after which we’ll give the followers what they’ve been asking for, for years. I actually suppose there’s no extra thrilling battle or no battle I really feel like is being requested for extra within the UFC than me and O’Malley. That’s what I hope occurs.”
O’Malley is at the moment a slight underdog throughout all main on-line sports activities books, which surprises Sandhagen. Sandhagen pertains to O’Malley in that they each are sometimes criticized for a aspect of their sport they haven’t actually proven a lot.
“I believe O’Malley is in a little bit little bit of the identical place as me,” Sandhagen mentioned. “We haven’t seen O’Malley battle a ton of wrestlers. There are a variety of unknowns there. You haven’t seen me battle a ton of wrestlers, so that you don’t actually know the way good my defensive wrestling is. I believe he’s in a little bit little bit of the identical boat. Normally, when that’s the case, individuals select wrestling. That’s been chosen time and time once more, that wrestling is normally the king of fight sports activities. I believe that they’re probably counting him out for that, however we haven’t actually seen him do a lot wrestling. So, who is aware of? He could possibly be pretty much as good as Jordan Burroughs or Kyle Dake or Vito Araujo, however I suppose you don’t actually know.”
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