Sean O’Malley is making bank playing video games

Sean O’Malley is a rising star in the UFC’s bantamweight division. Unfortunately, he’s been sidelined by a USADA suspension. He was supposed to fight on the biggest card of the year at UFC 229 but was pulled off the card when he was flagged by USADA.

While this represents a definite setback for O’Malley, he’s determined to turn it into a positive.

“Back-to-back surgeries and in the middle of a suspension for something I didn’t do,” Sean O’Malley said on The MMA Hour. “I’ve been [trying to be] super positive. I think a big thing right now is I’m super into gaming and I think that’s helped me a lot. I see people are always like, ‘Do you even train?’ and stuff like that, but honestly I haven’t really been able to train the last month because of this hip issue. I just got off crutches last week. So I’ve just been playing Fortnite, building my Twitch channel, keeping busy that way.”

O’Malley is still focused on fighting, but growing his Twitch channel is something he is also very interested in doing. The undefeated prospect has been using his time off as an opportunity to be online more — and it’s paying off.

“Right now I’m making around $4,500 a month through gaming,” Sean O’Malley said. “I just do it because I love it. I’ve been playing video games since I was a little kid and I’ve had a couple people say, ‘Why don’t you stream?’ I was like, ‘No one wants to watch me play.’ And I’ve been streaming for like nine months now and there’s some loyal fans in there.”

Sean O’Malley is eligible to return to the Octagon on March 6. Who do you want to see him fight when he’s back in action? Join the conversation in the comments section below.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 11/22/2018.