UFC 280: Sean O'Malley 'surprised' Petr Yan agreed to fight him

Sean O’Malley has admitted that he’s surprised Petr Yan agreed to take a fight against him at UFC 280.

Later this month in Abu Dhabi, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will put on arguably its most important event of the year thus far when UFC 280 emanates from the Etihad Arena.

The card is absolutely stacked and one of the main attractions, as many will know, is the highly anticipated grudge match between Sean O’Malley and Petr Yan.

The two bantamweight stars will meet in a contest that few would’ve seen coming, even with their previous back and forth jibes on social media prior to the fight being booked.

Read more: UFC 280: Sean O’Malley relishes underdog role against Petr Yan

Yan, as we know, is a former UFC champion at 135 pounds and has already fought the likes of Urijah Faber, Jose Aldo, Cory Sandhagen and Aljamain Sterling (twice).

O’Malley, meanwhile, has had two particularly notable opponents – Pedro Munhoz and Marlon Vera, neither of whom he was able to defeat.

It’s a huge step up in competition for ‘Suga’ and during a recent interview, he was asked whether or not he was taken aback when the UFC came to him with the idea.

“Obviously the Pedro Munhoz fight didn’t play out the way I wanted it to. If you look at the stats I didn’t get hit once in the face, didn’t get hit in the body, checked a lot of the kicks.”

“I just felt like I won that fight, or was about to, and apparently the UFC thought the same thing because you don’t get offered the number one guy in the world coming off a loss. So, I think having a big name helped too.”

“Petr Yan was the only guy in the top 10 without a fight booked and that fight came about like that. I’m surprised Petr took it more than I’m surprised the UFC offered it to me.”

“I’m