Sean O’Malley: “UFC wants Tom [Aspinall] to vacate” gold, “You just don’t want to be on the UFC’s bad side”

Sean O’Malley seems optimistic that the UFC’s heavyweight division can make a turnaround, but seems less optimistic about the present and potential future circumstances for Tom Aspinall. The UFC heavyweight champion has been sidelined since last October with, uncertainties abounding as Aspinall recovers from eye surgery with no clear idea on when, or if at all, the UK native will return to competition.

From the full video that was posted to the former UFC bantamweight champion’s YouTube account, with an excerpt posted to X account @RedCorner_MMA, O’Malley said,

“The heavyweight division’s just kind of been not super exciting, not super interesting. You’ve got Tom Aspinall. I mean Jon Jones is pretty much done, DC retired. DC was fun. The division is just not that fun. I saw someone saying get rid of it or whatever. But it’s a matter of time. It’s a matter of time before like just these stars start coming up. There’s so many guys like me that are 265, that are 6’6. It’s gonna be fun.”

“We’re going through a little lull but what goes down will bounce off the f****ing floor like a trampoline and go back up… They [UFC] want him to vacate the belt which I get. He [Aspinall] said if they’ll release him. God, it’s just like if they release him, Tom Aspinall is gonna go box? Like who, I mean, do people have interest in seeing Tom versus like maybe Francis [Ngannou] or something like that? You just don’t want to get on the UFC’s bad side. Not that he is. I mean, it sounds like they’re going through it.”

Sean O’Malley is unsure if he will fight on the UFC White House card

Sean O’Malley has not yet received any kind of message for a contractual offer regarding partaking in the UFC White House card planned out for June.

With mentions from Ari Emanuel about the White House card comprising six to seven fights and with Dana White recently mentioning at a Zuffa Boxing presser that the card has already been assembled, ‘Suga’ has a reason to think he may be off of it. Getting into the specifics of where he stands in relation to competing in alignment with American Independence Day, O’Malley stated [via Bloody Elbow],

“I haven’t got a call. I haven’t got a jingle. I haven’t heard nothing. So, the old ‘Suga’ show might not be on the White House. No, it’s still so far out.”