Aljamain Sterling rolled the dice on the supposed star power of Sean O'Malley but came away unimpressed.
Sterling (23-4) lost his strap to O’Malley (17-1) via second-round knockout in the main event at UFC 292 in August, for which he received a share of the pay-per-view sales, and those figures were apparently disappointing. Without revealing the exact figure, Sterling said on his YouTube channel:
“I got the pay-per-view numbers, and me and her were going through it, and I’m just like, ‘These are the numbers that this guy was trying to say he’s this big pay-per-view star?' I’m just like, ‘Oh my God.’ When I saw the numbers, I literally said to her, ‘If I had any idea this is what the numbers would have been, if I could have predicted that this is what it would have been, my ass would have waited and taken my vacation then.'”
Sterling’s clash against O’Malley came three months after a successful title defense against Henry Cejudo at UFC 288. Sterling claims he made quick turnaround expecting the biggest payday of his life considering his opponent is touted as one of the biggest stars of the sport today. The former champ added:
“I rolled the dice. I trusted that the bag was going to be this blow-me-away kind of thing, bigger than all the other ones. It wasn’t. With that being said, it is what it is. I’m still happy I made some extra money. I had a really good year. I can’t complain about that. Life’s good. I can take care of myself. I can take care of my family.”
Sterling has since decided to move up to featherweight, where he lobbied for a fight against former champ Max Holloway but will instead face Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 on April 13 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
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