In less than a week’s time, Aljamain Sterling will step inside the octagon to defend his bantamweight title against Henry Cejudo in a five-round main event bout at UFC 288. This will probably be Funkmaster’s toughest test as he goes against a fighter who is an Olympic gold medalist and two-division UFC champion.
As we edge closer to this PPV, Sterling is seen promoting his title fight by giving interviews to different media outlets. He gave some of his valuable time to ESPN MMA’s presenter Megan Oliva and answered many questions related to his upcoming fight and future goals. During this interview, Olivi asked Sterling whether the champ-champ status appeals to him or not.
Funkmaster admitted that it would be cool to hold two belts and revealed his ideal scenario after which he will decide to retire from the UFC. “That would be amazing. The perfect scenario I smash Henry, I smash O’Malley. I go up to 145, I fight Volkanovski or Rodriguez and maybe I defend the belt one time and I’m done.”
Aljamain Sterling believes that there will be nothing more to achieve after becoming a two-division champion simultaneously and defending the 145-pound title once. So far Sterling has dominated the bantamweight division and has recorded some memorable wins.
As per his scenario, he might actually not have anything else to achieve if he goes on and wins the featherweight title as there are only a few fighters who have accomplished that feat.
Aljamain Sterling believes that he will dominate in the featherweight division
Aljamain Sterling discussed a lot of topics with Megan Olivi during his ESPN MMA interview. While having a conversation, Megan Olivi asked whether he would like to move up to 145 at some point in time. The bantamweight champion seems confident and confirmed that he will definitely compete in the featherweight division.
“I look at some of these other guys at 145 and I train with them and I feel good about it. I know when it comes to grappling a lot of these guys I think I smoke. And that’s not trying to be cocky or anything.”
Despite having immense confidence in his skills, Sterling also said that all this maneuver will take time. He ideally wants to gain a few pounds of muscle and test himself against some top featherweights.
The best-case scenario for Aljamain Sterling would be to defend his belt against Cejudo and Sean O’Malley and then fight someone like Arnold Allen who is a higher-ranked featherweight.
Going against a champion like Alexander Volkanovski or Yair Rodriguez will be very difficult as they are quite experienced and have good all-round skills. As of now, his task would be to tackle Henry Cejudo who is making his return after three years of absence.
