Aljamain Sterling defended the UFC bantamweight championship three times before moving up to featherweight. His TKO loss to Sean O'Malley has helped teammate and friend Merab Dvalishvili to get his well-deserved title shot, though.
Sterling has no plans to move down to bantamweight despite his featherweight debut against Calvin Kattar getting a mixed response in MMA circles. With eight takedowns and almost 11 minutes of control time, he completely shut down the striker, but the bout lacked excitement.
Aljo is scheduled to fight Movsar Evloev at UFC 307, and he's already laid down the plan to reach featherweight gold in the promotion after his next fight...
Aljamain Sterling Discusses His Future In The UFC Featherweight Division If He Wins Against Movsar Evloev
Sterling was interviewed on the Helen Yee Sports YouTube channel recently. After backing his training partner to win the title at UFC 306, the former UFC bantamweight champ opened up about his plans to reach another division's top.
"Funk Master" questioned the UFC ranking Arnold Allen over Evloev even though his upcoming opponent beat Allen via unanimous decision earlier this year. Regardless, his aim is to enter the top 5 ranking with a solid win over Evloev and challenge the winner of Brian Ortega vs. Diego Lopes in a title eliminator.
I beat a guy like that, I think that puts me in a top-five conversation and then maybe the winner of Diego Lopes vs. Ortega. I fight that guy and then I fight for a world title.
If everything goes according to this plan, Sterling can very well look forward to fighting for the UFC featherweight champion after a couple of fights. He acknowledged that Evloev is a high-level grappler and his cardio could be a problem in their bout.
It's a tough fight. Two high-level grapplers and, I think I just edge him out in every department. The only thing, that if I'm being fair, the only thing that Movsar might have on me that he's been able to show of late that I haven't shown is the cardio. Because he can go at that pace the whole time, kind of, reminds of a Merab and I'm not ignorant to that. I can break things down and not be biased, but I know we'll be ready to go 15 minutes.
"Funk Master" also understands that he has to get a finish in his next fight to get more fans supporting his rise to the title. As a result, we might see some urgency to get a submission from Sterling as soon as the fight begins.