Aljamain Sterling thinks Sean O'Malley is being promoted as a big star, but says he’s no Conor McGregor.
Bantamweight champion Sterling (23-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) will defend his title against O’Malley (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in the UFC 292 headliner Aug. 19 at TD Garden in Boston.
Sterling, who’s fresh off a title defense against Henry Cejudo at UFC 288, wanted some time to see how his body feels before committing to his next fight. That prompted Dana White to criticize Sterling for accepting the fight, and led O’Malley’s head coach, Tim Welch, to think the promotion would rather have O’Malley as champ.
But Sterling thinks O’Malley has yet to back up his performances like McGregor did when he was on the rise.
“I do think that the UFC does want (O’Malley as the champion),” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “But then (Welch) started going into his reasonings of why and started calling (O’Malley) like this knockout artist – and not saying he never knocked anybody out, but it’s just very different now that he’s swimming with the big boys in the deep end.
“We just haven’t quite seen this magic knockout wannabe knock-off McGregor – that was like the trajectory that he was on. But for some reason, it’s just like people just don’t got the formula or the juice to be Conor.”
O’Malley’s most recent appearance was a controversial split decision win over Petr Yan at UFC 280 this past October. Sterling rates O’Malley’s skills highly, but isn’t sold on some of his performances.
“Anytime this man has stepped in there with a shark in the deep end, he’s been chewed up, for the most part, every single time,” Sterling said. “Maybe not say chewed up – (against Marlon) ‘Chito’ (Vera), he got flatlined. You ever see a domino, how you just topple it over and just falls? That was him.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
