[autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] expected the odds to be stacked against him vs. [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag].
O’Malley (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) challenges bantamweight champion Sterling (23-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) on Aug. 19 in the main event of UFC 292, which takes place at TD Garden in Boston and airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+.
O’Malley dubbed Sterling as the greatest bantamweight of all time, and is looking forward to defying the odds once again.
“Aljamain Sterling is the best bantamweight the UFC has ever known,” O’Malley told ESPN. “He’s in his prime. He’s 33, I think – that’s pretty much prime age. All the male UFC champions are in their 30s. He’s the best grappler in the division. I’m a striker. This is a striker vs. grappler matchup, so it’s exciting.
“It gets me excited. I want to go out there and prove people wrong. The last fight, everyone thought I was going to lose that fight. Then when I won the fight, it just made people so mad. I liked that. For whatever reason, I liked that. So for me to go out there and be a huge underdog again against Aljamain, it’s a weird addiction.”
According to BetMGM, O’Malley is a +210 underdog, meaning a $100 bet on the challenger would win $210 profit. Sterling is a -275 favorite, meaning a $275 bet would be needed on the champion to return $100 profit.
O’Malley was an even bigger underdog in his most recent fight against Petr Yan at UFC 280. But going up against a strong grappler like Sterling, “The Suga Show” thinks this is the most he’s ever been underestimated in a fight.
“Aljamain beat Petr in their last fight,” O’Malley said. “I looked at the Petr fight. I made a mistake. I did not expect him to wrestle or shoot at all. I train grappling all the time – in camp, we grapple.
“But for this fight, we know he’s going to shoot, so we’ve got to have a game plan around that, whereas the Petr fight, it was more of a kickboxing camp. Wrestler vs. grappler (striker), most people pick the wrestlers – so this fight for sure (is like that).”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.