UFC bantamweight champ Sean O’Malley has said many times that he wants to be the next Conor McGregor. By this, in all probability, he means he wants to be the biggest superstar in the sport of MMA. Regardless, now that the Irishman’s career is on a steep decline professionally and O’Malley’s star is rapidly rising, ‘Suga’ thinks this has made ‘Mac’ jealous of his rise.

But now, after meeting Tom Brady, whom many consider the greatest American athlete of this century, the bantamweight champ knows who he wants to be. And it’s not just to be MMA’s ‘next Conor McGregor’, but to be its first Tom Brady.

Sean O’Malley wants to be like Tom Brady

Speaking to ‘The Schmo’ on his YouTube channel, Sean O’Malley revealed that he was pleasantly surprised to see Tom Brady tell him that not only did he know who ‘Suga’ was, but also appreciated and complimented him on the way his career was going, advising him to keep at it since what he was doing was clearly working. “You know I introduced myself [to Tom Brady on the roast]. And he said he knew who I was, that to keep doing my thing and so that was pretty cool, whether he was serious or not, you know. I thought that was pretty cool,” O’Malley said.

Naturally, the UFC superstar was star-struck at meeting arguably the greatest Quarterback of all time and wasn’t ashamed to admit he was awed by Brady. And why would he be? It’s Tom Brady! O’Malley told ‘The Schmo’ that he wanted to be so successful in MMA that he has the same aura and is as highly regarded as Brady is today.

“It’s, you know, Tom Brady’s a rare men amongst rare men. So it’s cool to meet people like that, that are, you know GOATs in their sport. So you know, his presence was cool it was inspiring just to be around him. And that’s where I want to get to someday to be that kind of [athlete], to have that kind of presence and inspiration to young athletes well,” he added. But first, he must get through Merab Dvalishvili on September 14, who is, on paper a nightmare for the bantamweight champ.

‘Suga’ confident he will pull an ‘Aljo’ on Merab

O’Malley’s next fight may be the hardest of his life. Why? Because of their matchup. Strikers who don’t have much of a ground game have a long history of struggling against world-class wrestlers. And ‘Suga’ is precisely that type of striker, whose wrestling abilities are conspicuous from their absence. And Dvalishvili, of course, is perhaps the best wrestler currently at 135.

The reigning champ, unlike the rest of the UFC world, however, isn’t at all worried about ‘The Machine’s world-class chain-wrestling and deceptive strength as a threat. Which might be puzzling to some. But O’Malley is confident he will get the Georgian out of the cage with an early knockout before the Georgian really even has much of a chance to take him down.

And that is not an empty boast. After all, the reigning champ has done this before, and done it just last year! ‘Suga’ won the title at UFC 292 off of Aljamain Sterling, another world-class wrestler (not to mention Dvalishvili’s teammate and contender for best wrestler at 135).

Indeed, as O’Malley has predicted with Merab, ‘Aljo’ had failed to take O’Malley down before ‘Suga’ got him out of the cage in the very first minute of the second round. And it seems that is exactly how he sees, or at least wants the Dvalishvili bout to go. But ‘The Machine’ is one of the hardest workers in the UFC and must have learned from his teammate and friend’s unceremonious loss to O’Malley last year. How do you think their UFC 306 clash will go? Let us know in the comments section below.