Andre Soukhamthath is in action at UFC 222 and he is competing on the pay-per-view portion of the card against DWTNCS alumni Sean O’Malley.
The bantamweight says that a call out during an appearance on a friend’s podcast is what led to the UFC 222 encounter.
“After my last win, one of my friends named Kurt interviewed my and he was like ‘who would you like to fight next, give me some names.’ I’m not the type to really call out names, but I gave him a couple and Sean O’Malley was one of them. I gave him permission to just put it out there and I didn’t think it would get so big. The news got out and he’s (Kurt) got a fairly new podcast, but the news got out and that’s what happened. I guess he (O’Malley) heard about it and he was on a podcast to and he said he wants to fight me. He was calling me a dork and stuff, but he obviously doesn’t know me and I’m far from a dork, nothing wrong with being a dork. I carry much more swagger than he ever can and for him to call me a dork is really stupid…really funny. I saw him in Fresno (UFC Fight Night Fresno) and we were staying at the same hotel. I think he’s Luke Sanders teammate and I saw him in Fresno, the funny thing was that he looked like a dork. He had his hands in his pockets and he has his curly hair, walking around like this. We made eye contact and he’s like ‘hey bro’ and I’m like whats up. The sugar show or whatever persona he wants to put on, I saw how he really acts and he’s not like that all the time. He’s just trying to be cool, but I’m real all the time,” Soukhamthath said in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.
Speaking of the UFC Fight Night Fresno event, it was there that Soukhamthath defeated Luke Sanders to earn his first ever UFC win.
O’Malley made his official UFC debut at the UFC Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale against Terrion Ware and Soukhamthath was impressed by his future opponents work that night.
“I did see his fight against Terrion Ware and I thought he did really good. He did his stuff, he did his kicks, he worked his strength. He got a little tired, but he picked it back up and he caught a second wind. He wound up edging out the decision, he took the pressure and he handled it well. He even mixed it up, he went for a takedown and he got it. I think he did real good, especially since it was a co-main event. It wasn’t a big show, but it was a co-main event. I respect him man, he is a good fighter, no doubt about it…he’s a good fighter. He does good under the lights and I’m not looking past him,” says Soukhamthath.
UFC 222 takes place on Saturday, March 3 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Cyborg and Yana Kunitskaya headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
