Cory Sandhagen sees Sean O’Malley beating Aiemann Zahabi – but not with ease.
Former bantamweight champion O’Malley (19-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) meets Aiemann Zahabi (14-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) at UFC Freedom 250 on June 14 from the White House in Washington D.C. (Paramount+).
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O’Malley is a fight that Sandhagen (18-6 MMA, 11-5 UFC) was actively pursuing, but Zahabi ultimately got the matchup. Sandhagen is confident in his prediction for the fight, but expects O’Mally to struggle with Zahabi’s style.
“I think O’Malley will almost certainly win, but Zahabi definitely (has a chance). I’ve watched a lot of Zahabi’s fights just because in my head I was like, ‘Zahabi is not matched up, so maybe they’ll do me and Zahabi,'” Sandhagen said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “So I watched a bunch of Zahabi, and I think he’s going to be a harder problem to solve than what Sean gives credit for. But also, Sean’s very, very good.
“I think (O’Malley is) a lot better than all of the other guys that Zahabi’s fought. I think that Sean will win just because he’s better than him, but Zahabi is going to be a tricky problem to solve. Sean struggles with that sometimes, with trying to find his perfect shot. Sometimes he can be a little bit too much of a perfectionist, and I think that works against him so, he’ll have to deal with that. But even with that, I think that he’ll win.”
Sandhagen will instead run things back with Mario Bautista (17-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) at UFC 329 on July 11 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Cory Sandhagen: Zahabi trickier than O’Malley will give him credit for
