Brian Kelleher says he's exactly what Sean O'Malley is looking for: 'I'm unranked. I'm old. I'm slow.'
Brian Kelleher thinks he perfectly fits Sean O'Malley’s criteria.
With O’Malley (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) claiming that he doesn’t see a point in fighting ranked opposition if he’s paid the same amount for fighting unranked foes, Kelleher (23-12 MMA, 7-5 UFC) thinks it makes a lot of sense for O’Malley to fight him next.
So does O’Malley’s team, it seems, as his head coach Tim Welch recently reached out to Kelleher, he said, and asked about his availability for UFC 269 on Dec. 11. Kelleher said he immediately agreed to the fight.
“On my end, we’re 100 percent in,” Kelleher told MMA Junkie Radio. “His coach Tim Welch reached out to me on social media, he tweeted at me directly and said, ‘Are you free Dec. 11,’ and I’m saying right here, clear-cut, yes, I’m free Dec. 11. Let’s do this. I told my manager. We’re pushing for the fight, but it seems like the UFC is coming back with, ‘We’re not trying to make that fight yet.’ They’re kind of working around it. I don’t know why his coach would reach out to me and ask me and then it not happen when I’m completely down for the fight. I say yes, and we’re just waiting on their end to see what happens.”
He continued, “I’m unranked. I’m not ranked. I’m old. I’m slow. I’m everything this guy ever wanted right now. What’s the hold up? Let’s do this.”
Kelleher is aware that O’Malley must be hand-picking him for a reason but says he’s gravely mistaken if he thinks he’s going to tee off on him just like he did against Kris Moutinho at UFC 264.
“I think that they see something in me,” Kelleher said. “They think maybe I’m a winnable fight – a good stylistic matchup for him. I think his coach is looking out for the best of him, and maybe I’m somebody who he sees holes in his game and maybe something that O’Malley can exploit, maybe try and get a highlight-reel finish against. But I think he’s mistaken. I’m a guy that gets out there and I scrap, and I go for the finish, and I’m not just going to walk forward and take a beating by this guy.”
Kelleher is coming off a unanimous decision win over Domingo Pilarte in August, his first decision win since February 2018. But despite going the distance in his past outing, Kelleher got to show off his wrestling, landing all three of his takedown attempts.
“Maybe that’s the whole reason this guy is running,” Kelleher said. “I showed my wrestling skills in that last fight, that I can take guys down and lay ground-and-pound and keep them down. We know that’s the last place he wants to be so maybe that had something to do with him keeping quiet when I called him out. I don’t know.”
To see the full interview with Kelleher, check out the video below.