Aljamain Sterling just beat Henry Cejudo at UFC 288 on May 6th, and he’s already been booked to fight Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 on August 19th.
That’s just over three months between fights, which is a pretty tight timeline for any fighter to accept, let alone your bantamweight champion. But that’s what the UFC is doing. Sterling has asked for a September date and noted a number of injuries from his three fights over the past 13 months. But UFC president Dana White has confirmed Aljo vs. “Suga” is happening in August, and that’s that.
Sean O’Malley showed a little bit of sympathy for “Funkmaster” after hearing the laundry list of injuries the champ has been dealing with. But in the end, he thinks there’s more than enough time for Sterling to be ready for Boston.
“I mean, you did just fight,” O’Malley admitted during a new episode of his TimboSugaShow podcast. “But look at Izzy: that motherf—ker fought four times in twelve months. You have four months. It’s four months from a fight, take two months off, heal up, and then train hard for two months. It ain’t f—ing science … or is it? Math plus two. It’s called discipline.”
In the end, “Suga” said it isn’t about what he or Aljamain wants but what the UFC wants. When Sterling tried to turn the tables on O’Malley by suggesting via Twitter that the two fight at UFC 290 in July, O’Malley just shook his head in confusion.
“He acts likes he calls the shot!” O’Malley said. “I’m listening to the UFC, I’m not acting like I call the shot. Dana said August, so I said August. It’s not like I told Dana ‘Hey, f—king run it in August, I’m the man, I run this s—t’. I said ‘Hey, Uncle Dana,’ I didn’t call him ‘Daddy Dana’ like he says. I said ‘Uncle Dana, when you want me to beat up Aljo’, and it happened to be August.”
“I don’t know what his point is here. What’s his plan by even tweeting that?”
There’s a lot of pressure on Aljamain Sterling to sign the contract and accept the Sean O’Malley fight in three and a half months’ time. And if Sterling does decide he’s too banged up physically to fight? The UFC has Henry Cejudo as a replacement opponent ready for O’Malley — undoubtedly for an interim belt, since the Boston card needs to be topped with a championship fight.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
