Aljamain Sterling thinks Sean O’Malley may discover some success at featherweight.
After surrendering his bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili late final yr, ‘Sugar’ returned to the Octagon at UFC 316 intent on taking again the 135-pound crown. Sadly, issues didn’t work out O’Malley’s means. The truth is, they went considerably worse, with Dvalishvili scoring a third-round submission victory to retain his title and go two-up on the fan favourite.
Having misplaced back-to-back title bouts, O’Malley’s combating future is seemingly up within the air. One chance for ‘Sugar’ is a transfer as much as featherweight, the place a complete new crop of contemporary matchups awaits.
Talking from expertise, Sterling believes O’Malley may make an actual run at 145, although his encouragement does include an ulterior motive.
“I believe Sean would do rather well at 145, and I’m not saying that as a result of I might like to run it again, as a result of that’s apparent,” Sterling advised MMA Preventing. “However I believe his pace, his size would translate rather well. He’ll be capable to really raise a bit bit extra to get stronger. The one factor is there are some canines at 145 that in the event that they seize a maintain of him, they already know grapple.
Sterling suspects o’Malley would do ‘comparatively effectively’ at 145
O’Malley defeated Sterling in 2023 to say his first UFC title, and whereas the ‘Funk Grasp’ in the end made the transfer as much as featherweight, he’s been chomping on the bit to run it again with ‘Sugar’ ever since.
“I do assume he would have success,” Sterling continued. “Wouldn’t it be as a lot success as [he’s had] at 135? I don’t know. It’s laborious to say as a result of these guys are clearly smaller than him by way of attain and all the things, however his athletic capacity and his combat IQ, I believe it’s fairly good, the place he would do comparatively effectively at 145. And it simply is dependent upon the burden reduce, proper?
“I don’t know the way a lot that weight reduce actually affected him, however I do know for me, being tremendous lean, it killed me. Like, even in the present day, I awakened at 160, which is insane. I’m like ridiculously mild. I’m lighter now than once I was combating at 135.”
