James Gallagher Says Sean O’Malley Turned Down Grappling Match

A cross over grappling match between a UFC star and a Bellator star almost became a reality at Submission Underground 19, but James Gallagher says Sean O’Malley turned the opportunity down.

Everything began when Chael Sonnen posted the following on Instagram about O’Malley fighting at SUG 19:

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Dec 20th, @sugaseanmma will be in the @submissionunderground cage. Who will be standing across from him?

A post shared by Chael Sonnen (@sonnench) on

Andy Stevenson of Severa MMA provided the following transcript of what Sonnen said in the Instagram video:

“I have a deal with Sean. I will bring him out, walk him out there, and raise his hand by forfeit if nobody’s got the balls to take him on. I’ve told him I’m going to write him a big fat cheque on December 20th, and I am! So any of you guys that are out there chirping…if you’ve got a contract with Bellator or UFC, and you want to try to fight a guy, and I’m going to take his best skills away, I need to hear from you!”

Gallagher would accept the challenge from Sonnen and O’Malley, but according to Gallagher, O’Malley all of a sudden found a reason not to be at the event.

“I agreed to a deal we made with Chael after I saw this video, and he turned it down.” Gallagher clarified to SevereMMA. “I seen [sic] the video of Chael Sonnen calling ‘anyone’ out to fight Sean O’Malley in a grappling match. So, then I went to my team, they went to Chael, we made a deal, and now all of a sudden now he (O’Malley) doesn’t want to compete on the show.”

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