Aljamain Sterling thinks Sean O’Malley could find some success at featherweight.
After surrendering his bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili late last year, ‘Sugar’ returned to the Octagon at UFC 316 intent on taking back the 135-pound crown. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out O’Malley’s way. In fact, they went significantly worse, with Dvalishvili scoring a third-round submission victory to retain his title and go two-up on the fan favorite.
Having lost back-to-back title bouts, O’Malley’s fighting future is seemingly up in the air. One possibility for ‘Sugar’ is a move up to featherweight, where a whole new crop of fresh matchups awaits.
Speaking from experience, Sterling believes O’Malley could make a real run at 145, though his encouragement does come with an ulterior motive.
“I think Sean would do really well at 145, and I’m not saying that because I would love to run it back, because that’s obvious,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “But I think his speed, his length would translate really well. He will be able to actually lift a little bit more to get stronger. The only thing is there are some dogs at 145 that if they grab a hold of him, they already know how to grapple.
Sterling suspects o’Malley would do ‘relatively well’ at 145
O’Malley defeated Sterling in 2023 to claim his first UFC title, and while the ‘Funk Master’ ultimately made the move up to featherweight, he’s been chomping at the bit to run it back with ‘Sugar’ ever since.
“I do think he would have success,” Sterling continued. “Would it be as much success as [he’s had] at 135? I don’t know. It’s hard to say because those guys are obviously smaller than him in terms of reach and everything, but his athletic ability and his fight IQ, I think it’s pretty good, where he would do relatively well at 145. And it just depends on the weight cut, right?
“I don’t know how much that weight cut really affected him, but I know for me, being super lean, it killed me. Like, even today, I woke up at 160, which is insane. I’m like ridiculously light. I’m lighter now than when I was fighting at 135.”
