The past year has been a weird one for Sean O’Malley. His suspension for a positive test of ostarine was shortened when it was determined that it came from a tainted dietary supplement. However, the lingering effects in his system caused the NSAC to pull him from a second bout despite the fact that USADA chose not to further suspend him. 

Now O’Malley waits on the shelf, hoping for a December return to the cage. However, if he does get that call for a December bout, it’ll involve a big change in his current training. 

“Right now, I’m 100% training jiu jitsu,” O’Malley shared. “I haven’t been to The Lab in like a month or so just because I’m literally training jiu jitsu like that’s my life. That’s all I’m doing is jiu jitsu.”

Since the March cancellation, O’Malley has been trying out a bunch of different places. It’s allowed him to make gains in a place where we don’t typically see him take his MMA fights all that often.

“I’ve been going to a couple different gyms around Phoenix, just training jiu jitsu and grappling,” he said. “Training with ‘Tanquinho’ [Augusto Mendes], training with a bunch of world champion black belts, so I’m improving a ton.”

And although NSAC won’t allow O’Malley to fight at the present moment, jiu jitsu has given him an outlet to compete. This past Friday, O’Malley was featured on Fight 2 Win 122 on FloCombat competing in a purple belt nogi match with Princeton Jackson. Although he ultimately didn’t get the result he wanted, he learned a lot from it. 

“[Fight 2 Win] was a lot of fun. Jiu jitsu is a whole other sport that I’m super into right now. I’m putting all my time and focus into jiu jitsu right now and I’m enjoying it a lot,” O’Malley said. “I got exactly where I wanted to be - I got him to that foot sweep position, I got into the front headlock. I just tried to take the back too fast. I should have stayed patient and stayed in front headlock.”

Perhaps those skills will have crossover value when he is allowed to climb back into the cage.

“That’s just experience. That was my first time competing in jiu jitsu,” O’Malley said. “So that’s something I took away from that, be more patient.”

O’Malley plans on returning to The Lab soon to get back into the swing of MMA, and is hopeful it will translate to a fight later this year.