From the get go I thought Sean was legit, but didn't think he'd be a champion as it seemed like the UFC/Tim Welch were blowing so much smoke up his ass that he wouldn't put in the needed work to become champion. I thought Welch sounded like another Edmund/Fabia/grifter coach when he talked about O'Malley.
However, since his fight with Yan, despite being confident, O'Malley has been surprisingly grounded and realistic about where he/his opponents are at. He even said the fight with Yan was a toss up/tough.
IMO this is a championship mindset, similar to GSP saying his opponents were all his toughest fight ever.
So yeah, mea culpa to Sean and Welch. And whatever Welch is doing/saying to him, it's working in terms of technical ability, but also psychological.
Could be in for a long run as champion. It's weird because despite all of the showy stuff (hair, tats, cars) it seems like O'Malley is actually a fairly boring guy. If you took all that shit away he'd be in like Jake Shields level of charisma.
I was highly suspect on him for a number of reasons including:
-Early fight where he faked a back of head shot to get his opponent DQ'd when he was gassed and losing
-Being given the "oiled runway" treatment by the UFC with bookings to avoid high-level athletes or wrestlers/grapplers until he improved his physique and TDD/counter-grappling
-Seemingly brittle AF; leg injury against Souk, leg injury vs. Chito, hand injuries vs. Moutinho
-Unable to realistically put away Moutinho in a show-case fight where was fighting a tiny punching bag and couldn't drop/finish him after 200+ unanswered shots
However, he has come incredibly far since then in terms of getting way better as a fighter in so many areas - his footwork is wayyyy better, his strike selection and timing are way better, his TDD and control range is levels better. This shows you how important it is that the UFC has a vested interest in you to succeed, because if they didn't he would've got fed to Ricky Simon/Merab/etc. on the way up and got grapple-fucked into oblivion before he rounded out his game.
Moral of the story = fighters get better, it's just incredibly difficult to predict how much upside they have and how the UFC will book them to allow that to develop.
I can admit fault underestimating Sean's toughness and ability to keep leveling up - as a striker he has impressed me beyond belief. That being said until I see him clearly beat a Petr Yan or beat an opponent well-matched to take him out (Sandhagen, Umar) I can't consider him the best BW in the world. I actually think out of Yan/Sandhagen/Umar/Merab that he'll have the easiest time with Merab (has the worst overall game, very limited in the stand-up, doesn't have a control/submission game/damage game from top position).
He has a case to make for sure, but it's built on a house of cards to a degree.
