Cory Sandhagen is backing Sean O’Malley to beat Aiemann Zahabi at UFC Freedom 250, but he is not treating the White House matchup like a free highlight reel donation.
In a video shared by Ariel Helwani, Sandhagen said O’Malley should win because he sees him as the better fighter. The warning is the interesting part. Sandhagen has studied Zahabi and believes the Canadian brings a harder puzzle than O’Malley may be expecting.
Watch the clip below:
"I think O'Malley will almost certainly win, but Zahabi is definitely going to be a harder problem to solve than Sean gives him credit for.
Sean's very, very good. I think he's a lot better than all of the other guys Zahabi has fought. I think Sean will win simply because he's… pic.twitter.com/LZSRb9amPf
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 3, 2026
“I think O’Malley will almost certainly win, but Zahabi is definitely going to be a harder problem to solve than Sean gives him credit for,” Sandhagen said. “I’ve watched a lot of Zahabi’s fights just because they were kind of, I was in my head, I was like, well Zahabi’s not, he’s not matched up, so maybe they’ll do me and Zahabi, so I watched a bunch of Zahabi, and I think he’s going to be a harder problem to solve than what Sean gives him credit for.”
“But also Sean’s very, very good,” Sandhagen continued. “I think a lot better than all of the other guys that Zahabi’s fought, and I think that Sean will win just because he’s better than him.”
Sandhagen Sees The Trap In O’Malley’s Style
The most useful part of Sandhagen’s breakdown was not the pick. It was the reason he thinks Zahabi can make O’Malley work. Sandhagen pointed to O’Malley’s shot selection and said the former bantamweight champion can sometimes hunt for the perfect opening a little too hard.
“But Zahabi’s, he’s going to be like a tricky problem to solve,” Sandhagen said. “And Sean, I think he struggles with that sometimes, with trying to like find his perfect shot. Sometimes he can be a little bit too much of a perfectionist, and I think that that works against him, so he’ll have to deal with that, but even with that I think that he’ll win.”
O’Malley is a former UFC bantamweight champion with a 19-3 record and one no contest. He won the belt by stopping Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292, defended it against Marlon Vera at UFC 299, then lost two straight fights to Merab Dvalishvili before rebounding with a win over Song Yadong at UFC 324.
Zahabi is 14-2 and has built a real late-career push at bantamweight. The Canadian is the younger brother of Tristar Gym head trainer Firas Zahabi, and his recent run includes wins over Javid Basharat, Pedro Munhoz, Jose Aldo, and Marlon Vera. That is why Sandhagen’s warning matters. O’Malley may be the bigger name and cleaner striker, but Zahabi is not walking in as some random body for the Suga Show machine.
Sandhagen has plenty of room to talk here. He is 18-6, has fought elite bantamweights including Petr Yan, T.J. Dillashaw, Marlon Vera, Song Yadong, Umar Nurmagomedov, Deiveson Figueiredo, and Merab Dvalishvili, and has been in title-level fights himself. His pick still lines up with Merab Dvalishvili’s O’Malley-over-Zahabi prediction, but Sandhagen’s version comes with a warning: Zahabi is awkward enough to make O’Malley earn it.
