{"id":178609,"date":"2025-09-29T22:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T22:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178609\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T22:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T22:48:07","slug":"sean-omalley-picks-ilia-topuria-over-jon-jones-gsp-in-ufc-goat-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/178609\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean O&#8217;Malley picks Ilia Topuria over Jon Jones, GSP in UFC GOAT debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC bantamweight champion Sean O\u2019Malley believes Ilia Topuria has already cemented himself as the greatest fighter in MMA history.<\/p>\n<p>Before a loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306, Sean O\u2019Malley had Ilia Topuria<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/sean-omalley\/ufc-bantamweight-champion-sean-omalley-believes-ilia-topuria-needs-him\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> in his sights for a potential clash inside the Octagon<\/a>. At the time, O\u2019Malley was the UFC\u2019s bantamweight champion, while Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski to become the UFC featherweight titleholder.<\/p>\n<p>Topuria has since knocked out Max Holloway (his lone featherweight title defense) and Charles Oliveira to become the UFC\u2019s latest two-division champion. He\u2019s expected to return to the Octagon in the coming months to make his first lightweight title defense.<\/p>\n<p>Topuria\u2019s meteoric rise cements him in UFC history forever. But despite his relatively small sample size in the Octagon, Topuria is already O\u2019Malley\u2019s UFC GOAT pick, over Jon Jones and other legends.<\/p>\n<p>Sean O\u2019Malley tabs Ilia Topuria as the \u2018best pound-for-pound fighter ever\u2019 in shocking take<\/p>\n<p>During a recent video uploaded to his <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/iy8lT0mfjIc?si=f0bkWJrgHeSa3fWG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">YouTube<\/a> channel, O\u2019Malley weighed in on a potential superfight between McGregor and Topuria at The White House next year, and made a bold claim about the UFC lightweight champ.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIlia vs. Conor, f\u2014 it! You want a big fight? Conor doesn\u2019t have a great streak right now, in his last five, but if you want a f\u2014\u2013 main event at The White House?\u201d O\u2019Malley said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut they\u2019re not American\u2026I think Ilia could [beat him], you can never count Conor out, but Ilia Topuria is the greatest fighter, to ever walk this Earth. Greatest fighter, pound-for-pound, ever. Even over [Jon Jones]. His last three fights, KO\u2019s Volkanovski, Max Holloway, and Charles Oliveira.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s not beating these guys by decision, not taking them down and holding them down, he\u2019s knocking them out. It\u2019s f\u2014\u2013 sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Topuria\u2019s knockout wins over Volkanovski, Holloway, and Oliveira are arguably the greatest three-fight stretch in UFC history. Jon Jones, who retired earlier this year, is a common pick as the greatest UFC fighter of all time.<\/p>\n<p>After O\u2019Malley\u2019s Topuria callout <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/sean-omalley\/sean-omalley-stunned-by-ilia-topurias-ko-win-at-ufc-317-thank-god-he-didnt-accept-my-callout\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">went unanswered<\/a>, the former UFC bantamweight champion remains in awe of the Spanish star\u2019s accomplishments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC bantamweight champion Sean O\u2019Malley believes Ilia Topuria has already cemented himself as the greatest fighter in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,17499,11877,785,13421,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-178609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-ilia-topuria","12":"tag-jon-jones","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sean-omalley","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}