The UFC has made no secret about who they believe the next big thing is, and it’s certainly not the current UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling. Even though Sterling is arguably the greatest bantamweight in the history of the company, the promotion has made it apparent that they’d prefer for Sean O'Malley, Sterling's colorful 28-year-old opponent, to carry the torch into the future.
The promotion's return to Boston should have been dubbed “The Suga Show” because just about every marketing tool available has been dedicated to the challenger and not the reigning and defending champion. For all intents and purposes, Sterling is the B-side despite his championship status.
“I feel like Aljo is fighting for the Suga belt,” O’Malley said at Thursday’s final press conference. "I definitely feel like the A-side, it’s pretty obvious. I still have to knock him out.”
And that wasn’t by accident.
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For starters, it can be perceived as an away game for Sterling who will face O’Malley in Boston, where the connection between the Irish community and the bantamweight’s last name is an obvious play to the city’s largest ethnic group. The card has also been shaped to create a narrative for O’Malley with the opening fight on the pay-per-view featuring two former opponents facing each other with Marlon Vera and Pedro Munhoz. Vera owns a stoppage victory over O’Malley while Munhoz’s fight with the rising star ended in a No Contest due to an accidental eye poke. Both could be future opponents for O’Malley. There’s no such narrative in place for Sterling even though he is one win away from tying T.J. Dillashaw for most title fight wins in divisional history at five.
That disrespect for the champion continued with the promotion for the card that has seen O’Malley featured on ESPN’s flagship show “First Take” and had a video package for the pay-per-view that focused heavily on the challenger.
There’s no denying that O’Malley possesses a certain intangible quality that has seen his meteoric rise to stardom ever since his highlight reel knockout of Alfred Khashakyan on Dana White’s Contender Series back in 2017. Since then, he has only risen in popularity with three million Instagram followers. But his accolades in the Octagon pale in comparison to his opponent at UFC 292.
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Sterling got his the hard way. There was no DWCS where Snoop Dogg championed him on social media. He didn’t skip the line like O’Malley did when he got a shot at former champion Petr Yan directly after a No Contest with Munhoz. The 34-year-old made his debut at UFC 170 in 2014 and has a 15-3 record in the promotion and is currently riding a nine-fight winning streak dating back to 2018. He’s knocked off former champions (Renan Barao, T.J. Dillashaw, Henry Cejudo, Petr Yan) and top contenders (Cory Sandhagen, Jimmie Rivera, Munhoz) while scratching and clawing his way to a title opportunity.
Of course, he didn’t win the title the way he would have preferred as an illegal knee from Yan rendered him unable to continue and he was awarded the championship via disqualification but he made up for it when he won a decision in the rematch. And then he steamrolled Dillashaw and out grappled the Olympic gold medalist Cejudo. Yet, he still hasn’t received the respect he deserves from both the fans and the UFC.
It almost feels like a similar build to Ronda Rousey’s return to the Octagon at UFC 207 after a year away from the sport following her knockout loss to Holly Holm. She was stepping in against the newly minted women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes but the promotion heading into the fight made it all about the challenger with next to nothing in place for Nunes.
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That decision would hurt the UFC as they missed the opportunity to make Nunes a star and the Brazilian annihilated Rousey in just 48 seconds to retain the title and begin a trek that would end up with many seeing her as the greatest female MMA fighter of all-time. But the UFC’s tunnel vision wouldn’t allow them to see the future and they were stuck hitching their wagon to a losing horse.
They could potentially make the same mistake with Sterling.
The 34-year-old is charismatic and stellar when the Octagon cage door shuts. He has all the tools to be presented as a star for the UFC but the promotion has never truly appeared to be behind the “Funk Master.” He’s been the epitome of a company man who fulfills every obligation and never declines a fight that is brought to him. Surely, he could have shut down the opportunity of a quick turnaround after the Cejudo victory in May and told the UFC that he wouldn’t face O’Malley in hostile territory three months after the biggest win of his career. But he didn’t. He accepted.
“The difference between me and you, Sean, is that I actually embrace the challenges,” Sterling said. “I actually try to put my neck on the line to take the big fights. Who do you take? The easy fights.”
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O’Malley was shot into title contention relatively quickly as a split decision victory over Yan set him up for the title opportunity. He didn’t have to beat Cejudo, Dillashaw, Merab Dvalishvili, Cory Sandhagen or any other top ten ranked fighter to get the opportunity. But now that he’s here, he has the biggest challenge in front of him with Sterling. And it’s clear that the UFC has pushed all of its chips into the middle of the table on the viral sensation.
And if it doesn’t pay off and O’Malley ends up being Sterling’s 15th victory at bantamweight, will the champion take grave offense to how the UFC has treated him?
"I personally don’t give a s--- about that stuff, man,” Sterling said to The Sporting News. "To me, I’m doing this for one reason, and that’s to get the bag, bro. That’s why I started fighting: I wanted to become UFC champion. I knew that came with making more money. I’m happy. I set my life up for the rest of my life. This next fight, this is the icing on the cake.
“Sugar Show, welcome to the Funk Show.”
