Andre Soukhamthath may wind up looking back at his loss to Sean O'Malley as a major missed opportunity.
In the third round, with O’Malley clearly unable to put any pressure on his right foot, Soukhamthath continued to try to end the fight on the canvas instead of forcing O’Malley to stand. After the fight, it looked like O’Malley likely had a broken foot, so had Soukhamthath made him stay on the feet, he may have wound up with an injury-aided TKO.
Instead, O’Malley (10-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) took a unanimous decision from Soukhamthath (12-6 MMA, 1-3 UFC) with a pair of 29-27 scores and a 29-28.
The bantamweight bout was part of the main card of today’s UFC 222 event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass.
O’Malley kicked Soukhamthath’s leg early, and another one right after that seemed to hurt Soukhamthath’s leg. O’Malley feinted, but then found himself eating a solid right hand from Soukhamthath 90 seconds in. O’Malley stalked Soukhamthath down and kicked to the body, then worked his jab. Another leg kick midway through took Soukhamthath off his feet.
With two minutes left, O’Malley landed a spinning backfist, left hand high kick in succession, but Soukhamthath walked through them and didn’t drop. With 40 seconds left, a right hand from O’Malley put Soukhamthath on the canvas. He got back to his feet, but ate some kicks and took a big look at the clock. He went into survival mode to get to teh second round. O’Malley landed another kick, and then a right hand for a cap on a big first round.
Soukhamthath landed a right hand quickly in the second, then had O’Malley briefly on his horse. But it was short-lived and O’Malley got back to what he was doing well in the first. Just ahead of two minutes into the round, Soukhamthath was able to get the fight to the canvas. But O’Malley easily put up a triangle choke attempt. He ate elbows from O’Malley while O’Malley tried to tighten the triangle. Then O’Malley had an armbar attempt, but Soukhamthath slipped out and got to side control with two minutes left.
O’Malley recovered to half-guard, then was able to get a guillotine choke on and got back to his feet. He kicked Soukhamthath on the ground, then got side control himself with 25 seconds left in the round. A rear-naked choke attempt ended the round, and Soukhamthath was saved by the bell.
Soukhamthath tried to wrestle O’Malley early in the third, but couldn’t get the fight to the canvas. But with 3:20 left, O’Malley’s leg was hurt and Soukhamthath took the fight to the canvas. The better move may have been to stay standing, but he played on the mat and went after a submission. O’Malley wasn’t letting that happen and got back to his feet with two minutes left.
He got some separation and O’Malley was not able to put any pressure on his right foot. With 70 seconds left, O’Malley got back to his feet again and landed a spinning elbow, but again Soukhamthath went to the canvas. On the feet, O’Malley couldn’t stand – and that would’ve been the clearest path to victory for Soukhamthath. Instead, he lost a unanimous decision.
O’Malley stayed unbeaten and ran the perfect start to his MMA career to 10-0. Soukhamthath is back in the loss column after a TKO win over Luke Sanders in December gave him his first UFC win.
Up-to-the-minute UFC 222 results include:
- Sean O’Malley def. Andre Soukhamthath via unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-28)
- Andrei Arlovski def. Stefan Struve via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
- Ketlen Vieira def. Cat Zingano via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Mackenzie Dern def. Ashley Yoder via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Alexander Hernandez def. Beneil Dariush via knockout (punch) – Round 1, 0:42
- John Dodson def. Pedro Munhoz via split decision (28-29, 30-27, 29-28)
- C.B. Dollaway def. Hector Lombard via disqualification (late punches) – Round 1, 5:00
- Zak Ottow def. Mike Pyle via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 2:34
- Cody Stamann def. Bryan Caraway via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Jordan Johnson def. Adam Milstead via split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
For complete coverage of UFC 222, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan and Ken Hathaway contributed to this report on site in Las Vegas.)