Ray Longo says Aljamain Sterling wanted to put on a crowd-pleasing performance at UFC 292.
Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) lost his bantamweight title to Sean O'Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) by second-round TKO in this past Saturday’s main event at TD Garden in Boston.
Longo praised O’Malley for perfectly timing the right hand, but thinks the fight was going Sterling’s way until the stoppage. Longo also revealed that Sterling feared that his fight with O’Malley could resemble Israel Adesanya’s lackluster title defense against Yoel Romero at UFC 248, which could have thrown him off.
“The guy is good,” Longo said on the Anik & Florian Podcast. “He’s a great striker – there’s no question about it. Look, all three judges gave Aljo the first round, and I think deservingly so. But in between rounds, I really told Aljo, ‘Let’s go kick heavy. Let’s offset his punches. What I was looking at in the first round was a guy that didn’t want to commit. I think he was afraid of the takedown, and we knew that was going to happen, but I wasn’t really sure. I think O’Malley expected Aljo to do in the first round what he did in the second round.
“Aljo’s point was he could have made it like an Adesanya vs. Romero fight, but it would have been so displeasing to the crowd – which I’m surprised, because normally he doesn’t talk like he gives a sh*t about the crowd. The burden would have been on Sean. He would have been down two rounds if Aljo just does the same thing as in the first round. I don’t think he was making a move. Now I think it’s because he was waiting for Aljo to shoot in, but then somebody said he did have a bad rib. Maybe that played into it, too, that he was just going to keep his distance. But motherf*cker was accurate. He hit a beautiful counter.”
Sterling was initially against making a quick turnaround after defending his belt against Henry Cejudo at UFC 288 in May, but eventually succumbed to it. Longo says the UFC ended up getting their wish.
“It is what it is, but he did make the walk after three months,” Longo said. “He 100 percent didn’t want to do it a couple of months ago, but once he committed, he had a good camp. There’s absolutely no excuses. The UFC wanted what they wanted and they got what they wanted for sure.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 292.
