Sean O’Malley says the idea of jumping into Josh Hokit’s UFC White House press conference drama sounded a lot better after he was no longer sitting a few feet from Alex Pereira.
The former UFC bantamweight champion looked back at the viral scene involving Hokit, Pereira and Ilia Topuria, which followed Hokit’s chaotic UFC Freedom 250 presser appearance. Hokit had aimed his “Chama on your mama” insult at Pereira, Topuria reacted, and the room quickly stopped feeling like a normal media event.
O’Malley said he was not fully aware of Hokit’s words in the moment because he has been away from social media.
“Damn it. I’m not on social, so I don’t see anything,” O’Malley said. “I mean, I know that kind of whole moment went viral, and I didn’t see Hokit saying that.”
After hearing what Hokit said, O’Malley admitted he might have handled it differently if Pereira had not been sitting right there. That is a pretty reasonable survival instinct when the guy next to you has spent years turning people’s lights off.
“Maybe I should have,” O’Malley said. “When you’re that close to Alex Pereira, you don’t really think about, ‘Hey, I might talk some sh*t.’ I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna sit here and shut up.’”
Watch the clip below:
Sean O’Malley admits he should have backed up Josh Hokit during the #UFCWhiteHouse press conference:
"I should have been on Team Hokit. He’s absolutely right. Maybe I should have stepped back a few feet and got behind him and then started talking sh*t"
(🎥 @DamonMartin) pic.twitter.com/vCOmdwGr6X
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) June 1, 2026
O’Malley Admits Hokit Had A Point
O’Malley did not claim he was secretly ready to join the confrontation. Instead, he said Hokit was right to call him out for staying quiet and joked that he should have moved into a safer position before talking.
“He’s not wrong,” O’Malley said. “He’s not wrong. I should have been on Team Hokit. He’s absolutely right. Maybe I should have stepped back a few feet, maybe got behind him and then started talking sh*t. I f*cked up. I f*cked up.”
O’Malley said part of him thought doing nothing would make the clip funnier, which is exactly the kind of weird camera-awareness that made him famous long before he won UFC gold.
“I think what I did, what went through my mind is if I don’t do anything and I just kind of sit here still, it would have looked hilarious,” O’Malley said. “That was kind of my thought process and it worked out that way. But you know what? Hokit was right. I could have spoke up and said something.”
The bigger issue was the seating chart. O’Malley had Pereira and Topuria nearby, and he was honest enough to say that changed the mood.
“Two of the greatest knockout artists in the world of all time, legends sitting within five feet of me, both of them,” O’Malley said. “Wasn’t feeling too gangster right there, to say the least.”
O’Malley is scheduled to face Aiemann Zahabi on the UFC White House card after previously talking through that matchup and the Petr Yan fight he wanted first. Hokit is headed toward Derrick Lewis, so the press conference antics will eventually run into a very different problem once the cage door shuts.
O’Malley ended by separating the names he is willing to entertain from the one he wants nowhere near his business.
“I’ll focus my energy on Aiemann,” O’Malley said. “Aiemann and maybe a little Topuria, but Pereira, I want nothing to f*cking do with.”
The moment gave Hokit more attention before Lewis, but it also showed why O’Malley chose the quiet route on stage. Hokit was selling the fight. O’Malley was sitting beside Pereira and Topuria, two men who make bad ideas feel bad immediately. Pereira later said Topuria stepped up like a brother when Hokit’s trash talk crossed the line.
