UFC 300: Aljamain Sterling to Prove Double-Champ Potential, ‘Off Night’ vs. Sean O’Malley

The former UFC Champ makes his featherweight debut against Calvin Kattar.

Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports

Aljamain Sterling hopes to put the past behind him as he enters a new chapter of his career.

The former UFC Bantamweight Champion is set to make his return after losing the title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292. Sterling moves up to featherweight, where he will take on top contender Calvin Kattar on the UFC 300 undercard this Saturday.

RELATED: Aljamain Sterling on UFC 300 & Life Without Championship Gold

While Sterling doesn’t hold gold anymore after three successful title defenses, the 34-year-old believes his championship days are far from over. 

“I think a win over Calvin Kattar just symbolizes that I'm one of the best in the world,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “Not because of my size, I'm one of the best in the world because of my fight IQ. I think I'm one of the best in the world beating a guy like Calvin Kattar who's fought and beaten some of the best guys in that division.

“I think that symbolizes that I can become a double champ. That I can go out there and fight for a belt again and make some more history. I think that's what it's all about for me. It's just chasing the stats, chasing the gold, and at the end of the day, the money comes with it.”

The money is what ultimately led Sterling to rush a fight with Sean O’Malley in August, rather than sitting out to fight another day like he wanted to. ‘Funkmaster’ explains what went wrong for him in making that decision. 

“I don't think Sean had a fluke night,” Sterling went on. “We always say that ratio 9 out of 10 times and that was the one time in my personal humble opinion, I really think that was the one outta 10 times. You stacked the deck against me in a way and people are gonna say, well, we didn't force you to sign a contract. I'm like, let's call a spade a spade. One guy took off 10 and a half months to prepare to fight me. I had to be forced to turn around or was forced to sit and wait possibly nine to 10 months to compete again and not make any money. 

“So it's the devil on the shoulder waiting, sit out, not compete for a very, very long time where I want to be active and me asking for an extra month to prepare for a fight that I can turn around for, but I just need a little bit more time to properly prepare, properly get the right partners, and be in the right mental mind state to compete after having a little bit of time to kind of decompress.”

Reflecting on his regrets, Sterling has a chance to redeem himself against a somewhat similar boxer to ‘Sugar’ in Kattar and show that he wasn’t at his full potential the last time we saw him in the Octagon.

“Now here's another opportunity for me to fight another long, rangy guy again. I think it gives me an opportunity to show like, yeah, I had an off night,” Sterling said. “Even if I don't win against Calvin, I think the performance just being better overall will just show that I had an off night. I think that's what it's all about for me. 

I don't need to prove nothing to nobody.It's more for myself. This is what I wanna prove to myself. Like I know what it is already, but I would like to go out with a better performance than I did on the last one. For me it's the performance that matters the most. I always said to myself, if I performed the way I perform in the gym, usually is a good night for me. I'm hoping I could go out there, get back in the win column at UFC 300 and show the world that Aljamain Sterling is still here and a main contender to the belt.”

Calvin Kattar shares the same sentiment with his opponent after an unfortunate knee injury cost him in his last fight vs. Arnold Allen, which was ruled a TKO loss in Oct. 2022. 

“[Sterling is] arguably the greatest bantamweight of all time,” Kattar told Middle Easy. “That’s really not my opinion, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s a high-level competitor. He’s a former champ going up a division. There will be a lot of eyes on this one so I’m excited for the opportunity to go out, compete, and keep my stock at an all-time high. You only get these big moment opportunities when you fight top-level competition and I’m fortunate enough to have a quality opponent like him.”

Catch Aljamain Sterling’s featherweight debut against Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 this weekend.

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