“I thought Ben Askren was smart”- Sean O’Malley fires back at Ben Askren

Sean O’Malley has received criticism from several fighters, media, and fans following his loss at UFC 252. Ben Askren was among the many who heavily criticizied the rising star.

Askren ripped O’Malley for getting carried out on a stretcher claiming that was a clear sign of weakness. But O’Malley doesn’t see it that way.

“I thought Ben Askren was smart,” O’Malley said on “The Timbo and Sugar Show” podcast. “I didn’t know he was slow. You have an opportunity, you (expletive) your foot up. I had an opportunity. Your foot’s (expletive) up, and you have to walk here to there. Or they said, ‘Here, we’ll push you on a little thing with wheels so you don’t have to walk on your (expletive) up foot, make it worse.’ I’m like, ‘God, big Ben – I thought you were smarter.

I didn’t know you were stupid.’ It’s just stupid. If you ask the smartest person in the world, you smash their foot and you say, ‘Do you want to walk over there or do you want to be carted?,’ they would take the cart.”

O’Malley’s coach came to his defense implying that he was forced on the stretcher by UFC personnel.

Sean also touched on his opponent Marlon Vera.

“Let’s look at his career in five years, let’s look at mine,” O’Malley said on “The Timbo Sugar Show”. “I’m going to be f**king world champion, he’s going to be a f**king journeyman. That’s just what his style is. He wins some, he loses some. He’s slow, but he’s gritty, so he’s going to be able to finish some people after they beat him up for a while. The way his pace was, super slow like that, and I was exploding into shots, I wasn’t gonna get tired and I was just gonna beat his ass.

“I don’t know if I was gonna get a finish in that first round,” he continued. “He was tough and he was patient, which was fine, because that’s easier for me, he wasn’t doing anything, he was standing there. It f**king sucks.”

Will there be a rematch between Marlon Vera and Sean O’Malley?