Aljamain Sterling believes that UFC bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley has had assistance from the promotion to help build him into a star.
Though "Suga" still has to beat the opponents that are put in front of him, and has done so in spectacular fashion, his former opponent thinks that this has been aided to some degree.
The previous titleholder compared O'Malley's run in the bantamweight division to Jake Paul's career in boxing, where at a face level, he's delivering inside the ring by producing huge fights and big knockouts.
Where a lot of people have issues with Paul's victories is where the odds are heavily weighted in his favor by things like weight discrepancies and big differentials in both activity and experience.
Aljamain Sterling Says UFC Always Planned To Talk Him Into Quick Turnaround For Sean O'Malley Title Defense
Sterling recently appeared on the Verse Us podcast with Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick where he spoke about O'Malley's upcoming title defense against his friend and training partner, Merab Dvalishvili.
"Funkmaster" used his own experiences of fighting "Suga" at UFC 292 to explain why he believes there is a comparison that can be made to "The Problem Child".
Sterling says that not only was O'Malley fast-tracked into a title shot, he was made to defend his belt against the returning Henry Cejudo first and claims that the promotion were always going to push him towards making a quick turnaround for UFC 292, which would hinder his preparations and recovery.
The current featherweight contender, who is back in action at UFC 307, has been very outspoken about this decision and how he was eventually talked into fighting O'Malley in Boston shortly after beating Cejudo.
I want to see the best of the best compete, no excuses. Now, enter O'Malley, he fights one ranked guy, gets a title shot, split decision albeit and this is not me hating, this is just calling a spade a spade. He's supposed to fight me next which would give me enough time to prepare but instead, they say, 'Oh Cejudo's coming back, we want you to fight him.' In the back of their mind, they're like whoever wins this, we're gonna turn them around for August.
So he knows all this, I'm pretty sure he knows all this and only O'Malley can disclose all this. Or at least, the UFC knew for sure that this is what they wanted to do. Give him the best opportunity that they could to become a world champion by hindering and stacking the deck against his opponent. It's like the Jake Paul route. Stacking the deck so that you get these highlights or you get these favorable match ups and these wins to look as good as you do.