How Sean O'Malley made his masterpiece
Breaking down Sean O'Malley's remarkable win over Marlon Vera at UFC 299.
At UFC 299 we were blessed to witness one of the most dominant championship performances of all time.
As is so often the case with these masterclass fights, it was a collaborative effort. The challenger, Marlon “Chito” Vera, did not show up with much of a coherent gameplan, and his ability to make strategic adjustments on the night has always been questionable at best. As my Heavy Hands co-host Phil and I joked last week, Chito has a Gordian Knot approach to strategy; he tries to solve every style the same way: by chopping straight through it.
In the other corner was Sean O’Malley, the defending champion. And Sean O’Malley deserves immense credit for what he did in that cage. No matter how low your opinion of Vera’s efforts, you cannot but agree that O’Malley played his part with gusto. He did exactly what you expect an artist to do when confronted with a blank canvas.
The result was a masterpiece.
So for this, the very first article on my new substack, we’re going to break it all down. How did O’Malley so effortlessly avoid the trouble Vera’s low kicks gave him in their first meeting? How did he get a handle on Vera so quickly and so thoroughly that the famous comeback artist never came close to turning the tide? And how the hell did he make me so excited to watch it that, for a solid half hour, I completely forgot how annoying he is?
These questions and more will be answered, and all the answers analyzed to within an inch of their lives, down below. Let’s get into it.
Gaining control
The fight began as a one-sided affair. Nothing unusual about that: O’Malley is a fast starter, and Vera one of the slowest in the sport. But it was vital for O’Malley that he win the early rounds in such a way that Vera couldn’t gain enough of a foothold to orchestrate a comeback later on. Chito has a reputation of being all but impossible to knock out, and sure enough, he lived up to it on the night.
O’Malley needed to establish control. The first part of this process was to manage the distance. But simply giving ground would have invited Vera to pressure. So, how do you enforce a safe distance without encouraging the opponent to give chase?
Answer: the jab, of course.
Note: the above sequence actually comes from the fourth round of the fight, but it clearly illustrates the mechanism that O’Malley relied on throughout all five rounds.
You can see just how effective the jab is at thwarting pressure. O’Malley doesn’t just step forward and stick out his lead hand; he advances with a sidestep, moving on a slight diagonal, and then pivots to reset. This footwork helps to align the jab, allowing O’Malley to circumvent the obstacle of Vera’s lead hand even as he drives his own home–but there’s more: the resulting angle creates another threat, opening a clean line of fire straight down the middle of Vera’s guard. Vera cannot allow this angle to exist. He must adjust his own feet immediately, making it even more difficult for him to pursue. Remarkably, O’Malley is able to control engagements with the jab-and-pivot out of both stances.
Such positional boxing is the heart and soul of Sean O’Malley’s style, and it was absolutely key to his control of the fight with Chito. Fighting is a zero-sum game: purely defensive actions–like a static, high guard or a straight-line retreat–always present an opportunity for the opponent to gain ground. Passivity gets punished, and initiative is rewarded. In short, offense–even just the threat of offense–is always the best defense.
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