{"id":436584,"date":"2026-01-27T14:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/436584\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T14:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:09:07","slug":"sean-omalley-ready-to-renegotiate-ufc-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/436584\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean O\u2019Malley ready to renegotiate UFC contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean O\u2019Malley was back in action at UFC 324, taking a big decision win over Song Yadong<\/a> to put himself back in the title picture at bantamweight. But if the UFC wants him back in the cage for anything other than another championship fight, they\u2019re gonna have to pay him more.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the word from O\u2019Malley, who went on the Ariel Helwani Show and discussed his contractual status with the promotion and what\u2019s next for him in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, you sign a contract and you fight, you have a certain amount of fights on your contract, and it\u2019s hard once you sign that contract,\u201d O\u2019Malley said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fight five times, four times, and then complain, \u2018Hey, why am I getting paid this much?\u2019 Like, we sign contracts. You fight contracts out. At some point, you renegotiate your contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I still got a couple fights left,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think I have two more fights left on my contract. UFC doesn\u2019t really like when fighters fight out their contracts, because then you\u2019re a free agent. So I feel like I\u2019m at a point right now, I signed a new contract before [fighting Aljamain Sterling] \u2026 got two more fights on my contract, and I feel like I\u2019ll probably renegotiate before my next fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

After UFC 324, O\u2019Malley said he was planning to wait<\/a> for 135 pound champion Petr Yan to rematch Merab Dvalishvili in the hopes that he\u2019d be next up for the belt. But a sweet pay bump for \u201cSuga\u201d would make him a lot less championship-focused.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I want Petr Yan,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the thing is, if there was a bigger fight, if I would make more money fighting someone else, I\u2019d want that. I want the title. The amount of money I was making as a champion compared to not champion is significant. I was making a lot more money as a champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna fight for the belt, or pay me the same amount as I would for a title fight and I\u2019ll fight Cory [Sandhagen]. For me, this has been a business since the beginning. Since day one, I have wanted to make as much money as possible. Right now, the way my contract\u2019s set up, I make a lot more money fighting for the title.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how the UFC has operated for years: the champions make the real money and everyone else struggles to clear a million or two per fight. But as a legit needle mover, Sean O\u2019Malley definitely deserves to be paid more regardless of whether there\u2019s a belt around his waist or not. And if the UFC wants its top names fighting more \u2014 and thus moving the needle for Paramount+<\/a> more \u2014 they\u2019d be wise to earmark some of that $7.7 billion in media rights money to keeping guys like him happy and active.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, UFC tells you what to do,\u201d O\u2019Malley concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m sitting there saying no this, no that. Like, I would ask. I would negotiate. I would say, \u2018Hey, is there any way I can make the same amount of money?\u2019 And go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean O\u2019Malley was back in action at UFC 324, taking a big decision win over Song Yadong to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":["post-436584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}