Sean O’Malley has long billed himself as a budding UFC superstar. The UFC bantamweight title challenger boasts an instantly recognizable look, an attractive striking-heavy style, and no shortage of confidence.
However, O’Malley’s next opponent, the reigning bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling, completely disagrees. Sterling appeared on Jake Paul’s podcast to point out the not-so-sweet spots in “Suga” Sean’s game.
Aljamain Sterling: Sean O’Malley Is NOT The New UFC “Golden Goose”
“I’m looking at him and seeing what he’s doing to the guys. He’s fighting guys that are stationary, standing right in front of him. He takes his time, he lets them pick their shots, and then he picks his shots and he lays the better shots.
I’m like, if you get a guy who’s actually trying to wrestle him, it’s a different fight, man. You get a guy with good footwork, it’s not the same fight, man.
So things like that bother me, and it’s not because of him. I almost feel like maybe the UFC is almost like my pappy, you know.
So I look at them like my dad, where I almost feel like I need to prove something to pops, to be like, ‘Oh yeah, you think this, ‘I’m gonna show you motherfucker,’ for me.
I felt like the UFC had him as this f****** golden goose that was gonna make all these eggs for them. And I don’t know, I was like, ‘Dude, he’s not as good as you guys think.’”
Aljamain Sterling recently dispatched former champion Henry Cejudo to seize the UFC’s record for consecutive bantamweight title defenses. Reigning at the top of arguably the sport’s most competitive division leaves little time to relax, and Sterling has his mind focused on improving from one bout to the next.
Accordingly, Aljamain Sterling thinks little of O’Malley’s unorthodox training methods. “This is what gets me going. This is what gets me up in the morning and this is what gets me in the gym and push those hours.
This, there’s times when I do these shark tank drills – I’ll do eight rounds. Like, this is the type of mentality, and this type of warfare that I’m preparing for when I go into these fights.
Like, I come in ready, and he’s doing all this f****** weird hippie breathing into a balloon bulls***.You know what I’m f****** doing? I’m doing another f****** round, I’m doing another f****** round of grappling.
This is real s***. The s*** is he doing? I’m like, what the f*** are you doing, bro?”
