By the time Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera square off for their anticipated rematch March 9 in Miami for the UFC 299 main event, 1,300 days will have elapsed since they last fought one another.
The first meeting took place Aug. 16, 2020, at UFC 252 inside a near-empty UFC Apex while lockdown-era life was in full effect. It was O’Malley’s fifth fight under the UFC banner, going 4-0 after his star-making performance in front of Snoop Dogg on Dana White’s Contender Series; Vera was coming off a loss up at featherweight to Song Yadong and already had 14 UFC tilts under his belt.
The story of the first match was the effectiveness of Vera’s kicks. The Ecuadorian landed only nine total leg kicks in the fight yet the momentum swung when he connected on a hard low kick to O’Malley’s lead right leg as the younger fighter stood southpaw.
O’Malley tried to hide it, but it was immediately clear his peroneal nerve was impacted and the leg compromised. O’Malley was having trouble adjusting whilst down a limb and stumbled throwing a combination. He fell to the mat, where Vera assumed top position, rained down elbows that pierced the guard and the referee called a stop to the action. O’Malley immediately grabbed his right leg in pain.
Both fighters have five wins since that night and despite Vera coming out on top, it has been O’Malley who emerged a superstar and bantamweight champion.
With a stacked UFC 299 just around the corner, it’s a fitting time to look back at what each 135-pounder has done in the 3.5 years since UFC 252.
O’Malley bounced back from his first and only professional loss in style 11 months later by picking up a highlight-reel knockout over Thomas Almeida to earn a Performance of the Night bonus. He picked up two more post-fight awards for beating up Kris Moutinho at UFC 264 and Raulian Paiva at UFC 269 to complete a 3-0 campaign in 2021.
His next outing against Pedro Munhoz ended in a no-contest. Munhoz used a kick-heavy approach like Vera and had modest success against a much taller opponent. An accidental eye poke from O’Malley rendered Munhoz unable to continue and the fight was stopped midway through the second round.
Despite the ambiguous result, that bout was a step up in competition and it showed O’Malley could hang with a perennial top-10 contender like Munhoz. He was ready to be tested by the division’s best, so less than four months later after facing Munhoz, he was pitted against former bantamweight champ Petr Yan in a three-round bout at UFC 282. O’Malley emerged with a split-decision win over Yan; all three judges gave Round 2 to Yan and Round 3 to O’Malley, so that exciting scrap comes down to how the ultra-close opening round is scored.
O’Malley fought for and won the title in his next appearance. Aljamain Sterling won the opening round on all scorecards in the UFC 292 main event using mostly kicks at range as O’Malley stalked, feinted and assessed Sterling’s timing and distance. It took him less than one minute into the second round to solve his opponent and land a fadeaway counter right hand before following up with a series of fight-ending ground strikes.
“Suga Sean” has always relied on feints to create openings and angles that can result in a knockout, and it’s exactly what led to him becoming a UFC champion. He doesn’t waste much movement or energy when at striking range, is faster and longer than most of his opponents, and his confidence has only grown during his current unbeaten streak.
Vera, meanwhile, has gone an admirable 5-2 since beating O’Malley, although he couldn’t hold the initial momentum very long. Four months after beating O’Malley, Vera dropped a decision to Hall of Famer Jose Aldo. Vera won one round on each judge’s scorecard in the three-round bout and used the confidence he gained from going the distance with an all-time great to begin a win streak of his own.
The 31-year-old rebounded from his loss to Aldo with four consecutive wins that resulted in four performance bonuses, including two knockouts over former UFC champions.
Vera picked up a decision win over Davey Grant in a Fight of the Night performance, knocked out Frankie Edgar with a front kick, outduelled Rob Font over five rounds (and took his share of their Fight of the Night bonus because Font missed weight), and then knocked out former bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz with a fourth-round head kick.
His streak was snapped almost a year ago when he dropped a split decision to Cory Sandhagen, a top-tier talent whose accumulated control time in Rounds 1, 2 and 5 secured him the win on two judges’ scorecards. One judge had Vera winning the final three rounds and one judge had Sanhagen winning all five rounds. It was competitive, especially over the final 15 minutes, but the decision is not considered controversial and Sandhagen was the rightful winner.
Vera is coming off a three-round unanimous decision win over Munhoz at UFC 292 in August, the same night O’Malley won the title. The win was enough to earn him a title shot but primarily because he remains the only fighter to beat O’Malley. From a meritocracy standpoint, both Sandhagen and Merab Dvalishvili deserve a title shot ahead of Vera.
O’Malley told Ariel Helwani during an appearance on The MMA Hour earlier this month he quickly turned off Vera’s win over Munhoz after starting to watch tape of the 15-minute bout.
“I watched almost two minutes of it and realized, I was like, ‘I’m going to KO this dude,’” O’Malley said. “That’s all I needed to watch. (My coach Tim Welch) does most of the watching and he’ll show me little clips and little stuff here and there, but for the most part I just watched two minutes of that, realized I was going to knock him out, and that’s all I need to know.”
O’Malley has gone the distance only four times in 19 professional fights and has never seen a fourth round. In fact, it’s only the second time he has been scheduled for a five-round fight. He needed only six minutes to finish the job in his first five-round scrap. One of the possible advantages Vera holds in the rematch is his proven durability and cardio.
The last time a Vera bout didn’t see at least a third round was when he beat O’Malley. Being in the spotlight should be a non-factor in the rematch, as both have regularly shone under pressure in their careers. O’Malley has exclusively fought on numbered UFC events since 2018; Vera has made only two pay-per-view appearances since beating O’Malley but has headlined three Fight Night cards in the past two years.