O'Haire did two years in kickboxing, going 0-4, losing all four fights by knockout.
His MMA career was more interesting, because he went from pro wrestling right into it, and won his first two fights via first-round knockout, the second on a K-1 promoted show in Honolulu. His luck ran out as he was thrown to the wolves, this time in Seoul, South Korea, facing Min-soo Kim, a South Korean who won a silver medal in the Olympics in judo, who also later was Brock Lesnar's first MMA opponent. O'Haire lost that one via guillotine.
Without a doubt, his most high profile fight for U.S. fans was on the Oct. 21, 2006, Pride 32 show from Las Vegas, where he faced gimmick boxer turned MMA fighter Butterbean.
The fight was originally scheduled as Butterbean vs. Mark Hunt, but Hunt had a visa issue. Pride was aware of the potential of a problem, so offered O'Haire $3,000 and all his expenses paid, to be on stand-by. O'Haire took this as an excuse to party in Las Vegas, never expecting to fight.
Bassman, on Facebook, writing about the death of O'Haire, said that when O'Haire ended up in the fight, he was then approached by Nobuyuki Sakakibara, the President of Pride, who told him that fans expected a stand-up war from Butterbean vs. Hunt, and figured that O'Haire would try and take the fight down. Bassman figured that was logical, given O'Haire would have little chance of winning otherwise.
Describing the meeting with Sakakibara and Yukino Kanda, who booked fighters and headed the U.S. operations for Pride, Bassman wrote, "It's immediately apparent that I'm being asked to make sure Sean keeps it standing up. I mildly protest, saying that doing so will eliminate his only true hope."
Pride, known for paying big money at the last minute to get what they wanted, asked if a $5,000 bonus would be enough. Bassman negotiated it up to $10,000, and went to O'Haire with the proposal.
At first, O'Haire was thrilled. His $3,000 weekend just became a $40,000 weekend. Then he thought about it more, and it wasn't as great a proposal as he first thought.
"I'm gonna get killed, aren't I?" he said to Bassman. "Could you just ask Bean not to break my face?"
Bassman, friends with Butterbean, said he went to the 300-plus pound boxer, who agreed with one stipulation, that he hates getting kicked in the face and will lose his cool if that happens.
O'Haire was then given the message, don't try to kick Butterbean in the face.
So O'Haire went out celebrating his good fortune before the fight.
The match started. The first thing O'Haire did was kick Butterbean in the face. Twenty-nine seconds later, O'Haire was knocked out.
O'Haire's MMA record is listed at 4-2, with his final fight in 2007, although he fought a couple of other times in an era were record keeping was far from complete. He suffered left eye damage, the result of a bar fight, and his MMA career ended shortly thereafter.
After fighting, he at one time owned a barber shop and worked as a hair dresser in Hilton Head Island. He continued to have brushes with the law. Most recently, he was working as a personal trainer in Spartanburg, S.C.
