Alexander Volkanovski thinks bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling’s path to victory is more reliable than Sean O'Malley’s at UFC 292.
Sterling (23-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) defends his title against O’Malley (16-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in Saturday’s pay-per-view main event at TD Garden in Boston. Sterling has used his grappling to suffocate his opponents, notching impressive title defenses over former champions Petr Yan, T.J. Dillashaw, and Henry Cejudo. Because of his effective game plan, featherweight champion Volkanovski sees Sterling beating O’Malley – even though he has a gut feeling that O’Malley could pull off the upset.
“I’m leaning towards Aljamain because I just think that that wrestling and that control, it’s going to eventually get there,” Volkanovski said on his YouTube channel. “You know how sometimes you just watch someone’s story and it’s just like something is meant to be? Then you got Aljamain talking about definitely moving up after this. A part of the story is does he lose and he was moving up anyway and Sean O’Malley, this whole rise that he’s done, becoming champion, massive superstar for the UFC. It could be – it feels likes sort of something that could happen. Beating Petr Yan?
