Aljamain Sterling, Sean O’Malley Trade Barbs Over UFC 292 Scheduling
“Suga” Sean O’Malley isn’t worried about the status of UFC bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling’s health going into their scheduled showdown this summer.
O’Malley spoke on the latest episode of his podcast the TimboSugarShow on Monday and responded to the recent comments Sterling made last week, detailing some of the lingering injuries he’s dealing with in the lead-up to his fight with O’Malley at UFC 292 on August 19 in Boston.
“He acts like he calls the shots,” O’Malley said (h/t MMA Junkie). “I’m listening to the UFC. I’m not acting like I call the shots, either. Dana said August, so I said August. It’s not like I told Dana, ‘Hey, f*cking run it August. I run this sh*t.’ I said, ‘Hey, Uncle Dana.’ I didn’t call him daddy like he said. I said, ‘Hey, Uncle Dana. When do you want me to beat up Aljo?’ And it happened to be August. I don’t know what his point is here. I don’t know what his plan is by even tweeting that. He did just fight but look at Izzy. Motherf*cker fought four times in 12 months. You have four months. It was four months from the fight. Take two months off, heal up, and then train hard for two months. It ain’t f*cking science. It’s called discipline.”
Sterling meanwhile responded to O’Malley’s comments via the following video posted Tuesday, explaining he has every intention to compete on August 19 and even brought up O’Malley’s inactivity. The 33-year-old Uniondale, New York native has defended his title, three times over the last 13 months, whereas “Suga” hasn’t competed himself since UFC 280 last October.
“First off, it’s not science you freaking numb-nut moron, it’s called math,” Sterling said (h/t MMA Fighting). “Mathematics. You probably forgot because you might have dropped out of high school or maybe you smoked all your brains away and you completely just forgot the difference between science and mathematics when you’re dealing with numbers. You know the big numbers that I like to make when I cash out for whooping that ass. As I said, I’m going to show up August 19, not because of you, not because of the fans, I’m showing up because Dana [White] is cutting the check for August 19. Other than that, you call no shots, I call no shots so let’s stop pretending all this other nonsense. What’s this going to be 97 days [between fights]? Last time I checked I thought that was three months, not four but I mean maybe it’s science. Maybe there’s something to this. Maybe the way you do your math is completely different from me but I’m going to take the time off, heal up, obviously, I had the discipline to become a champion. Like you said [Israel Adesanya] has fought four times a year — how many times did you fight in the last year? Wait, oh wait, Abu Dhabi, October 22 we both fought on the same card. I fought three times in 13 months, you fought I think once. Wow, that’s impressive, bro. Wow. I want to be just like you when I grow up. High all the time, talk like this, and beat all these guys in the top 5 [rankings] that are still currently in the UFC. Dude, you’re such a freaking badass! You’re so freaking awesome. Isn’t Sean awesome?”
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