Aljamain Sterling is confident he’d avenge his loss to Sean O'Malley if they ran it back.
Sterling (24-4 MMA, 16-4 UFC) lost his bantamweight title to O’Malley by second-round knockout at UFC 292. It was a near perfect performance from O’Malley, who was able to stuff Sterling’s takedown attempts and make him pay on one of his entries.
Sterling’s fight against O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) came just over three months after a five-round battle with Henry Cejudo, and “The Funkmaster” insists the quick turnaround negatively impacted him.
“O’Malley showed up that night,” Sterling told Kanpai Media. “It was an off night for myself, and the better man won that night. That’s why we say, ‘Any place, anywhere, any time.’ Sometimes it’s your night, sometimes it’s not, and unfortunately for me, it just didn’t go my way. But I do know if I had a rematch, and as long as he waited from August to fighting ‘Chito’ (Vera) in March, you give me that time to recover and prepare and to cut my weight the proper way, in a rematch, I would bet my life savings on that.
“People are going to say I’m still salty. I’m like, ‘Yo, skills are skills. Facts are facts.’ If I sit there and chop the legs down the way I did in the first round, like, yeah, we could sit here and do this all day long, but I think overall, O’Malley is getting better, but I think I’m very good at what I do and he’s very good at what he does. I’m very good at not letting people do what they want to do.”
Sterling has since moved up to featherweight where he smothered Calvin Kattar for a successful divisional debut at UFC 300.
After a shutout of Marlon Vera in his first title defense at UFC 299, O’Malley is projected to make his next title defense against Sterling’s good friend and teammate, Merab Dvalishvili.
“Now he gets to fight Merab, and I’m happy for my friend to get a chance to become a world champion the same way I gave an opportunity of a lifetime for O’Malley even while I handicapped myself,” Sterling said. “Finally, he’s giving my boy a fair shake and giving him a chance to realize a dream.”
