Aljamain Sterling believes Sean O’Malley can achieve success with Featherweight.
After waiving the bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili late last year, “Sugar” has returned to the octagon, trying to regain the 135-pound crown at UFC 316. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out in O’Malley’s way. In fact, they got significantly worse, with Dvalishvili recording a three-round submission victory to keep his title and make two fan favorites.
The future of O’Malley’s battle, which has lost his back-to-back title match, appears to be in the air at first glance. One possibility of “sugar” is the featherweight movement, where a whole new crop of fresh matchups awaits.
Experience suggests that Sterling believes O’Malley can do a real run at 145, but his encouragement comes with impure motives.
“I think Sean will really do well at the 145. I’m not saying that it’s obvious and I want to run through it,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “But I think his speed, his length really translates well. He could actually lift a little more and get stronger. The only thing is that at 145 the dog grabs him and already knows how to tackle it.
Sterling suspects O’Malley will “do relatively well” at 145
O’Malley beat Sterling in 2023 to win his first UFC title, and while “Funk Master” finally moved to featherweight, he has been whipping it bit by bit to run it with “Sugar” ever since.
“I think he’ll be successful,” continued Sterling. “Does that be as successful as I had at 135? I don’t know. It’s hard to say because they’re clearly smaller than him in terms of reach and all that, but his athleticism and his fighting IQ would make him relatively well.
“I don’t know how much that weight cut had on him, but I’m very lean, it killed me. I still woke up at 160 today, but it’s crazy.