Bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley doesn’t think Aljamain Sterling will push the move to the featherweight division. Calling the No. 1-ranked bantamweight fighter “insecure,” O’Malley believes he will soon return to 145, where he is stronger and bigger.
O’Malley defeated Sterling at UFC 292 in August, allowing the former to snatch the UFC bantamweight title. After that, Sterling put his focus on his earlier plan to move to the featherweight, revealing in his recent video the exploration of the weight class. According to Sterling, despite the challenges, he was seeing positive outcomes. The fighter also shared that he was considering a rematch in featherweight with O’Malley, who suggested that he could move to the division if Ilia Topuria could take down Alexander Volkanovski.
Yet, O’Malley doesn’t think Sterling will truly push the move to featherweight.
“He’ll probably go back down to ‘35, just because he’s insecure and he wants to be stronger and bigger than these guys,” O’Malley said. “Why else would he not fight at ‘45? It’s not like his skills aren’t there. His skills, he’s good. Not as good as me, but he’s good. You know what I mean? He could go up to ‘45, I think he’d do fine up there.”
Despite that, O’Malley praised the fighter, sharing the promising future awaiting him in the new division. According to “Sugar,” Sterling could get some interesting fights at featherweight, and pursuing the path will benefit him in the long run.
“I like Aljo, he’s a good dude,” said the champ. “I really never said anything bad about him. I think if he goes up to ‘45, it’d be super interesting. I think there’s a lot of interesting fights up there at ‘45.
“I think his weight gets big enough for that. You know, I’m probably 160 [pounds] right now, I probably [won’t] get over this. He’s probably 175. Like, it just doesn’t make sense to go back to ‘35, for his health, for his longevity. I think there’s certain matchups at ‘45 that he could do good [with]. What about Aljo versus, like, Brian Ortega? That’s a sweet fight.”
