Israel Adesanya thinks Marc Goddard’s stoppage of Sean O'Malley vs. Aljamain Sterling was fair.
O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) scored a second-round TKO of Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) to claim the bantamweight title in this past Saturday’s UFC 292 headliner at TD Garden in Boston.
Less than a minute into Round 2, O’Malley caught Sterling with a perfect counter right which face planted him. He was able to land a few clean follow-up shots, but Sterling appeared to be moving when Goddard waived the fight off at the 51-second mark. Adesanya thinks Sterling could have had more time to try and recover, but doubts he would have.
“It could have gone for a little bit longer, but it would have been bad,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “He was just on. He was standing over him – clean finish.”
Prior to the fight, UFC middleweight champion Adesanya had a gut feeling that O’Malley was going to pull off the upset so wasn’t entirely surprised with the outcome.
“Destiny,” Adesanya said. “That’s destiny, man. What did I say? I said he’s going to touch him. He’s going to knock him out. Take the moment in, son. It’s called destiny, man. Sometimes, when it’s a n*gga’s time, it’s a n*gga’s time.”
Adesanya applauded Sterling for his classy post-fight speech and how he handled the loss.
“It happens, man,” Adesanya said. “Sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re a nail.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
