Don’t Bet On Sean O’Malley Remaining UFC Champion
He’s no Conor McGregor circa 2016, but a new UFC star has been born.
Bantamweight Sean O’Malley (17-1) captured the UFC belt on August 19, 2023, in a significant upset over Aljamain Sterling (23-4). O’Malley had a career performance, dropping and stopping Sterling in round two. Oddsmakers favored Sterling (-250) due to his grappling, but he didn’t land a takedown against O’Malley (+205) in two attempts.
O’Malley appears here to stay in the UFC’s 135-pound division, but what are his future prospects? At DraftKings Sportsbook, you can wager on O’Malley holding the belt at the end of 2024. Yes, you read that correctly—2024, not 2023.
The betting odds offered are dubious. A futures bet on O’Malley holding the bantamweight strap when the calendar flips to 2025 comes with +150 odds. He’s a slight plus-money underdog against the field but has the shortest odds among all the names on the list.
That part, of course, makes perfect sense. O’Malley is the current champion, so he should be the favorite. But is +150 worth betting a unit of your sports betting bankroll?
Let’s take a look at some concerns.
How Many Fights Will O’Malley Have?
The biggest problem with this bet is that we don’t know how many times O’Malley will fight between now and Dec. 31, 2024. Our best guess is 2-3 more times, depending on his results and how other fights in the division play out.
O’Malley didn’t suffer much damage in the Sterling fight, so he should be good to go in 3-6 months for another fight. He said after the victory that he has a nagging muscle strain under his rib, so an early spring return could be most likely.
A rematch with Sterling is possible, depending on O’Malley’s timeline. Sterling might need extra time off after fighting twice in less than four months.
Based on what we saw, O’Malley should be the favorite in the rematch, but it might be close.
If the +150 odds were offered on O’Malley to win a Sterling rematch, you’d want to bet it. However, it’s unlikely he’ll only face Sterling once between now and the end of 2024.
That said, if Sterling won the rematch, O’Malley would likely get the trilogy fight due to his popularity. A hypothetical Sterling vs. O’Malley III would probably take place in the second half of 2024, which conceivably would be O’Malley’s final fight of the year.
That’s arguably the dream scenario for this bet.
Let’s assume either the rematch doesn’t happen (Sterling has flirted with moving up a division) or O’Malley wins the rematch and there’s no trilogy. Possible other opponents for O’Malley over the next 15 months include:
- Merab Dvalishvili
- Umar Nurmagomedov
- Cory Sandhagen
- Henry Cejudo
- Marlon Vera
Most are tough matchups for O’Malley and could be pick’em fights (essentially 50-50 odds). It’s worth noting that Vera already has a win over O’Malley.
Cejudo is arguably the easiest fight for O’Malley, but Cejudo recently lost to Sterling in a title fight. It appears unlikely Cejudo will have another title shot in the near future.
Bottomline
O’Malley is an incredible fighter, and we agree that he is the most likely to be champion of his division at the end of 2024, but we don’t like +150 odds. There are too many unknowns and tough matchups.
This bet is like parlaying 2-3 more O’Malley fights without even knowing the opponent.
What price would we need to make this bet? Odds of +250 could be a playable bet.
We recommend waiting to see if the odds change before making a futures bet on O’Malley.
Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
