\u201cSuga\u201d didn\u2019t want to fight \u201cKung Fu Kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion Sean O\u2019Malley will return for the first time since his title rematch loss when he meets division staple<\/a> Song Yadong at UFC 324<\/a> on Jan. 24, 2026, inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n However, apparently that wasn\u2019t O\u2019Malley\u2019s idea. He wanted the surging Canadian Aiemann Zahabi.<\/p>\n \u201cSuga isn\u2019t looking so hot lately, but I think he\u2019s going to come back and impress people,\u201d O\u2019Malley said on his podcast today. \u201cSong Yadong is explosive, young, hungry, and very experienced for being so young. He\u2019s beat some of the best guys in the division. He\u2019s got a really good fight camp over there at Team Alpha Male. He\u2019s Chinese, so he\u2019s smart. It\u2019s not an easy fight.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want this fight; I wanted Aiemann. I was like, \u2018Can I have Zhabi?\u2019 They said \u2018no.\u2019 F\u2014k! I\u2019ll take Song. It\u2019s a good fight,\u201d O\u2019Malley concluded. \u201cNo. 2 vs. No. 5 in January. I\u2019ve been trying to fight. I wanted to fight in December, November, but I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n Zahabi, riding a seven-fight win streak, had called out O\u2019Malley earlier this year after beating Marlon Vera, and it looks like he almost got his wish \u2014 but not quite. He\u2019ll likely have to settle for someone like Mario Bautista now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSuga\u201d didn\u2019t want to fight \u201cKung Fu Kid.\u201d Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion Sean O\u2019Malley will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-322363","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-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news","15":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322363","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=322363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}