Aljamain Sterling sung the praises of Sean O’Malley at the UFC 292 post-fight press conference. Despite losing via technical knockout to O’Malley in the second round of their championship bout, Sterling only had good things to say about the new bantamweight king.
Sterling Praises O’Malley
After the dust settled on an eventful night in Boston, the former champion Sterling was gracious in defeat. “He was better than what I thought in his footwork. That was one of the things I tried to get guys to emulate, because I knew that is a hard thing to do,” said Sterling. I do it myself when I go side to side, but it’s different when someone else is doing it to you. I tracked him down a couple of times, but then he would spin out at the last second. He was able to pivot out beautifully. He did a couple things really, really well.”
“I threw the left hand, and as I was coming down, he stepped back and threw a beautiful counter right and it was clean,” continued Sterling. Soon after O’Malley landed the counter right that dropped Sterling, ‘Suga’ continued to land strikes as ‘Funk Master’ tried to evade them on the ground. Referee Marc Goddard put a stop to the bout 51 seconds into the second round. “I felt like the fight could’ve still kept going to be honest,” said Sterling. “I rolled over to try to come back up, and I soon as he stepped in, I was fine. It was just one of those things. I can’t be mad at the ref, it is what it is.”
‘Suga’ Capitalises on Sterling Mistake
After a tentative first round, Sterling looked to take the fight to O’Malley early in the second. He squared up and rushed in looking to land his left hand, but ‘Suga’ moved back and countered with the right dropping Sterling to the canvas. “We’ve seen bad fights before, where it’s like not much happens because no one wants to make that grave mistake. I made the mistake, Sean capitalised. I paid for it,” Sterling said.
Prior to the fight, Sterling said that his intentions were to move up to featherweight. His post-fight comments indicated that he would be reconsidering that statement. He said: “I would like to think that I’ve earned my right to get an immediate rematch.” O’Malley made it clear that he would like to avenge his only loss to Marlon Vera and once again called out ‘Chito’ after winning the belt. Vera defeated Pedro Munhoz on the same card earlier in the night.
All quotes credit to Sherdog.com
We have now entered the Sean O’Malley era at 135 pounds. Welcome to the ‘Suga’ show.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
