Sean O’Malley details foot injury: ‘It would be better if it was broken’

Sean O’Malley doesn’t know how long he will be sidelined for after suffering an injury in his “Fight of the Night”-winning performance against Andre Soukhamthath at UFC 222.

O’Malley backed up Dana White’s claims that he did not suffer a broken foot despite him having to conduct his post-fight interview on his back on Saturday night.

According to “Sugar”, he re-aggravated a previous fracture during the bantamweight clash.

“The foot has been pretty much hurting since the fight,” O’Malley told Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.

“They said it wasn’t broken, but they said I’ve got a previous fracture in there from before the fight, so I’m gonna figure out what’s wrong with it. It’s hurt pretty much nonstop, so we’ll see.”

“I didn’t (know it was previously fractured). Every fight I’m in I throw a lot of kicks. I land with my feet a lot, I’ve had a lot of foot issues because of that. I’ve had a lot of foot injuries so I wasn’t surprised.”

Although it looked as though O’Malley didn’t incur the injury until the third round when he visibly winced after attempting to land a head kick, the Arizona native revealed that he became aware of the injury in the opening round.

“I think I landed a few kicks with my foot on his knee in the first round. I think I hurt it a little bit in the first, a little bit in the second and then finally, I couldn’t use it in the third,” he said.

In the third, O’Malley couldn’t feel his foot at all:

“It was a super weird feeling. I couldn’t feel my whole foot when I put it on the ground. Every time I put pressure on it, it wasn’t there — it was super weird. It sucked.”

The MMA Lab fighter went on to claim that it would be “better if it was broken”.

“What I understand is it would be better if it was broken because it would be easier to heal than ligament tears. I think I would almost rather it would be broken, but we’re going to check it out and we’ll see where we can go from there,” said O’Malley.

“I’m on crutches. I couldn’t even put a little bit of pressure on it on the ground,” he added.

Still in dark as to when he will return to the Octagon, O’Malley said he would fully commit himself to his recovery.

“Just getting this foot healed, that’s my focus 100 percent,” he said. “I’m just putting my attention into healing this foot, eating right and making sure my body is healing right, just getting healthy and getting back to training. I’m not think about anything other than that.”