Aljamain Sterling is assured he’d avenge his loss to Sean O’Malley in the event that they ran it again.
Sterling (24-4 MMA, 16-4 UFC) misplaced his bantamweight title to O’Malley by second-round knockout at UFC 292. It was a close to good efficiency from O’Malley, who was in a position to stuff Sterling’s takedown makes an attempt and make him pay on considered one of his entries.
Sterling’s combat towards O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) got here simply over three months after a five-round battle with Henry Cejudo, and “The Funkmaster” insists the fast turnaround negatively impacted him.
“O’Malley confirmed up that night time,” Sterling informed Kanpai Media. “It was an off night time for myself, and the higher man received that night time. That’s why we are saying, ‘Anyplace, anyplace, any time.’ Generally it’s your night time, typically it’s not, and sadly for me, it simply didn’t go my approach. However I do know if I had a rematch, and so long as he waited from August to combating ‘Chito’ (Vera) in March, you give me that point to recuperate and put together and to chop my weight the correct approach, in a rematch, I’d wager my life financial savings on that.
“Individuals are going to say I’m nonetheless salty. I’m like, ‘Yo, expertise are expertise. Info are information.’ If I sit there and chop the legs down the way in which I did within the first spherical, like, yeah, we may sit right here and do that all day lengthy, however I feel total, O’Malley is getting higher, however I feel I’m superb at what I do and he’s superb at what he does. I’m superb at not letting folks do what they need to do.”
Sterling has since moved as much as featherweight the place he smothered Calvin Kattar for a profitable divisional debut at UFC 300.
After a shutout of Marlon Vera in his first title protection at UFC 299, O’Malley is projected to make his subsequent title protection towards Sterling’s good pal and teammate, Merab Dvalishvili.
“Now he will get to combat Merab, and I’m pleased for my pal to get an opportunity to grow to be a world champion the identical approach I gave a possibility of a lifetime for O’Malley even whereas I handicapped myself,” Sterling stated. “Lastly, he’s giving my boy a good shake and giving him an opportunity to appreciate a dream.”
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