SEAN O'MALLEY DENIES TURNING DOWN FIGHT WITH PAYTON TALBOTT

Sean O'Malley has denied a report claiming he turned down a fight against Payton Talbott for a White House card, calling the claim "absolutely bullshit" in a video message. The denial followed Talbott's win over Deiveson Figueiredo in the co-main event of UFC 332 at the Delta Centre in Salt Lake City. Talbott stopped Figueiredo in the opening round and used his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan to call out O'Malley for a future fight. During the interview, Talbott briefly referred to O'Malley as "Andrew Garfield" before correcting himself and naming the bantamweight fighter.

Reports attributed to commentator Jon Anik, who worked UFC 332 alongside Rogan and Daniel Cormier, suggested O'Malley had been offered a fight against Talbott for the White House card. O'Malley rejected that account, maintaining that the UFC controls his matchmaking rather than him picking opponents. He said he wanted to fight Petr Yan for the event but was matched with Aiemann Zahabi after Yan became unavailable, and that a similar switch happened before, when he wanted Zahabi but faced Song Yadong instead.

Talbott had made similar claims earlier on his YouTube channel, saying he had repeatedly been lined up to fight opponents, including O'Malley, only for those bouts to fall through, reportedly because of foot injuries. No fight between O'Malley and Talbott has been officially confirmed by the UFC. After beating Figueiredo, Talbott, who fights out of Las Vegas, called on O'Malley to accept a match, telling Rogan "you can't run forever" and that he wanted to "give the people what they want." O'Malley's account of the matchmaking process contradicts the claims attributed to Anik, leaving the dispute over the White House card offer unresolved.