UFC News & FeaturesThe Octagon on Saturday touches down in Boston for the first time in nearly four years when the Ultimate Fighting Championship brings UFC 292 to the TD Garden. A bantamweight-heavy main card sees Aljamain Sterling’s latest title defense at 135 pounds in the headliner, as he faces Sean O’Malley in a fascinating fight with plenty of legacy stakes. Beyond that, Weili Zhang puts her women’s strawweight championship on the line against Amanda Lemos in the co-main event, and uber prospect Ian Garry seeks to make his latest statement against longtime welterweight stalwart Neil Magny. A pair of bantamweight bouts open festivities: Da’Mon Blackshear looks for a record-setting two UFC wins in seven days against Mario Bautista, and Marlon Vera takes on Pedro Munhoz in an important, well-matched affair.
Now to the UFC 292 “Sterling vs. O’Malley” preview:
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UFC Bantamweight Championship
#6 P4P | Aljamain Sterling (23-3, 15-3 UFC) vs. #2 BW | Sean O’Malley (16-1, 8-1 UFC)ODDS: Sterling (-258), O’Malley (+210)
The UFC’s bantamweight division has typically felt like more of a critical success than a commercial one, particularly in recent years, but this title fight seems to check all the boxes as an excellent fight on paper that also serves as a huge proving moment for each man. Sterling has seemingly tried to get his deserved amount of respect for years now, even going back to 2015, when the “Funk Master” seemed underpromoted despite his status as one of the most exciting prospects in the sport. Naturally, Sterling started to get his due just in time to suffer the roughest stretch of his career, losing close decisions to Bryan Caraway and Raphael Assuncao, then briefly rebounding before getting knocked out by Marlon Moraes. That led to some worry that Sterling’s window for title contention may have suddenly closed, but his next few performances saw him finally synthesize his striking with an already strong wrestling and grappling game, leading to his running over Cory Sandhagen in under 90 seconds to mark himself as bantamweight’s top contender. Then things got weird. Sterling’s title shot came against Petr Yan, and the Long Islander decided to turn up the pace early, effectively pressuring the Russian and taking some early rounds but gassing himself badly in the process. It gave Yan the opening to clearly coast to a successful title defense. Yan had the fight in hand by the later stretches of the fourth round, at which point he calculatedly decided to blast Sterling with an illegal knee while the challenger was grounded Sterling was unable to continue, and the unprecedented result was that he would become the first UFC champion to win the belt via disqualification. The result earned Sterling the wrath of the fans thanks to his status as an undeserved champion, even if it was clearly Yan’s fault, and he has never quite won the public back. Part of that is thanks to each of Sterling’s title defenses coming with a perceived asterisk. He won a rematch against Yan in narrow fashion; T.J. Dillashaw turned out to be fighting with a separated shoulder as Sterling crushed him; and his May win over Henry Cejudo also had a fair share of people saying they believed the challenger won. At this point, it is unclear what else Sterling can do from a resume standpoint to earn his flowers outside of scoring a definitive win over a contender in his prime. To that end, the opportunity is there for that to happen against O’Malley, though things could also go horribly wrong.
O’Malley has seemingly been preordained by the UFC for stardom since the promotion signed him six years ago, and to their credit, both fighter and promotion have done their work to get him to viable title challenger status. “Sugar Sean” was one of the standouts of the first season of Dana White’s Contender Series, thanks to his personality inside the cage and his fighting style, built around landing some impressive knockouts. The UFC was clearly in the O’Malley business from the jump after he earned a contract, and his next few bouts showed his long-term potential and some short-term causes for concern. O’Malley tended to flag once opponents would not go away, and an injury suffered against Andre Soukhamthath raised some worry about how his body would hold up with his fighting style. Making matters worse, the United States Anti-Doping Agency essentially railroaded O'Malley’s career upon his recovery from injury, eventually leading to a two-year layoff. However, O’Malley apparently put the time off to good use and looked excellent upon his return, scoring two more quick knockouts until another concerning setback, this time suffering another leg injury against Marlon Vera that kept him out of action for a few months and once again raised worries about his long-term health. Come 2021, O’Malley’s matchmaking was rightfully criticized a bit as he was handed opponents at a level he had clearly moved past, but a fight against Pedro Munhoz in 2022 figured to be a tough test on paper. In practice, it was a bit of a dud, with Munhoz showing a surprising amount of caution and throwing O’Malley off-guard until an eye poke suddenly ended the bout in a no contest. That made it a shock when the UFC turned around and booked O’Malley against Yan, seemingly a nightmare matchup for a fighter who had proven little against durable and aggressive opponents. It was even more surprising when O’Malley walked away with the split decision win, surviving adversity and landing some big offense to turn the fight into a coinflip.
This is an excellent pairing between two obviously high-level bantamweights that also have a number of questions to answer. For O’Malley, that is simply because the Yan performance was such a step up from what he had shown previously, while Sterling has not faced much in the way of tall strikers—the closest port is Sandhagen, and that fight quickly went to the ground and was over within a minute and a half. Sterling’s length has always been a bit of a safety valve, allowing him to strike from range and generally flummox his opponents, so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to having that typical advantage taken away. An obvious answer would be to pursue his wrestling early and often, but it will then be fascinating to see if Sterling falls into the same trap as he did in his first fight against Yan, burning out his gas tank in the name of banking some early control. Of course, this being a fight between two long fighters cuts both ways, and that could affect O’Malley, as well. It is less of a concern after how he kept his composure against Yan, but there is still the nagging worry that O’Malley is much better as a bully and could run out of ideas in the face of constant danger. This could be a star-making performance for O’Malley via quick knockout, but assuming Sterling does the smart thing and gets to his wrestling early, it could just wind up being a compelling test of gas tanks. Sterling has fallen off harder in recent memory, but while O’Malley is a practiced grappler, his flashes of wrestling and grappling in his fights do suggest that the champion should be able to control the fight once he gets it to the mat. It could take a grind to get there, but the bet is that if Sterling can take the initiative with his takedowns, he can work efficiently enough to find his way to a finish before tiring out. There is the constant risk that if this fight turns against the champion, it will turn permanently, but the pick is Sterling via third-round submission.
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Sterling vs. O’Malley
Zhang vs. Lemos
Garry vs. Magny
Blackshear vs. Bautista
Vera vs. Munhoz
The Prelims
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