Boston, MA — Beaten but not dejected, Aljamain Sterling was not making any excuses following the loss of his bantamweight title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 on Saturday.
“There was a lot coming into this fight, the quick turnaround, everything, but I was happy to do it. No excuses. Sean, he did a good job,” said Sterling (23-4), addressing media outlets including Cageside Press after being stopped on the feet in the second round. “The one thing I knew he would be good at is that step-back counter. Yeah, just a good shot man.”
Sterling believed he saw something else when that counter came his way. “I stepped in, he capitalized on the one mistake that I made, and I paid for it. I felt like the fight could have still kept going, to be honest. I rolled over to try to come back up, as soon as he stepped in I was fine, but it’s just one of those things. Can’t be mad at the ref. It is what it is, losing sucks. It always does. Especially losing to him. But honestly he’s a good fighter, man.”
Aljo reiterated that he respected O’Malley’s skills all along. And he has been in this position before. “A lot worse though, with Marlon Moraes, and I was able to bounce back and put together a pretty good streak to even get the belt. So it’s just one of those things. Life goes on, and it’s just whatever you decide to make of it.”
Sterling now plans to use the loss to fuel himself, for “bigger and better things,” he added. But before bigger and better things — whether that’s a move to featherweight or something else — the now-former 135lb champ would like to run it back with O’Malley.
“That’s one of the things we’ve got to talk about. I would love to have a rematch,” stated Sterling. “I don’t know which way I’m going to go with things. I would first and foremost love an opportunity to run that back, and just get some definitive answers. And maybe I could do, I don’t want to say a better job because the guys I trained with were phenomenal, but maybe make it more [the intent] to have guys that are giving me that look, going side-to-side, so I do a better job for preparing for that. Because that ultimately was the one thing I was concerned with, and it was the one thing that he did a great job with, neutralizing my forward pressure.”
It comes down to a couple of tactical things that Sterling feels he needs to address, he continued. “I think it’s a very winnable fight. I think he’s good at what he does, I’m good at what I do.”
And so an immediate rematch is “100% what I would like the most,” said Sterling, adding that “I would like to think that I’ve earned the right to get an immediate rematch.”
Watch the full UFC 292 post-fight press conference with Aljamain Sterling above.
