Everyone, no matter how good they are at their craft today, had to start – from the beginning. As total novice, without having a clue about what they’re doing.
That’s true for every single person, including professional MMA fighters. Such as Sean O’Malley.
“Sugar” started training in a kickboxing gym, but when he was 18 he decided to move and train with his current coach, Tim Welch.
And, well, O’Malley had a difficult time there when it came to grappling. He struggled a lot with it in the beginning, especially wrestling.
He shared a part of the story in the recent “FLAGRANT” episode:
I came down to Arizona. Literally for 10 days, every time I left practice I was crying.
When it came to wrestling, I didn’t know how to fu*king wrestle to save my life. Kickboxing I would do okay, I would do alright, but when it came to like grappling days… I had zero chance.
I would leave the gym fu*king crying.
“Sugar’s” grappling is excellent today, though. And not just when it comes to MMA fights, but also in regards to grappling tournaments – in which he periodically competes as well!
For example, he competed against Robert Deggle in a Grappling Industries event, and Degle had nothing but words of praise for him:
For Sean to compete in such an event demonstrates a very respectable desire to grow as a martial artist.
Realistically he had nothing practical to gain by doing this event. The man has over a million followers and is surely making bank in MMA. So why do the event?
We spoke afterwards and he explained that he simply loved JuJitsu.I hope the experience of competing against me helps push him to further development as a martial artist.
I was a fan before but an even bigger one now.
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