Shortly after his victory over “Chito,” which may or may not have been a “robbery,” Zahabi called for a showdown against former 135-pound titleholder, Sean O’Malley. “Sugar” appeared confused by the callout in a video posted to social media, likely based on all the talk around this potential matchup.
“That’s good,” Zahabi said backstage (via MMA Junkie). “It seems like we’re setting it up. If he didn’t want it, he wouldn’t have made a video. I’m in the Top 10 now. I want to fight them all and [O’Malley] is No. 1. I feel like the way things are going with Merab, he’s clearing out the division and not to sound negative, O’Malley’s a great fighter and all that, but he fought Merab twice. So I don’t think he’s up next for the belt.”
“There’s going to be maybe Umar [Nurmagomedov] or [Mario] Bautista, [Petr] Yan, there’s some guys who are going to get the title fight before Sean O’Malley because he lost to Merab two times and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way,” Zahabi continued. “So I feel like I have the opportunity to fight somebody like No. 1, so I want to take it. I feel like I showed to the fans that I [won’t] go down easy. I’m hard to kill.”
