Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling got his feet wet at featherweight recently with a convincing unanimous decision victory over Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 and now he’s signalled his interest in fighting either Brian Ortega or Movsar Evloev next.
“There’s so many possibilities with the grappling aspect of things and that’s what I like about both those fights,” Sterling said of his two potential opponents on his YouTube channel. “If you’re gonna ask me which fight do I want, give me Brian Ortega. He is the highest-ranked guy not named Max Holloway and not named Alexander Volkanovski. I beat him, I think it puts me automatically in a position where I get to fight for the title.”
The 34-year-old Sterling also went into more detail about why he likes those particular match-ups, describing them as a “grapplers delight.”
“If I were to fight Ortega, if you take him down, he ain’t gonna hang out on his back. He’s looking for triangles, he’s looking for armbars off of his back, he’s looking for kimuras, he’s looking for up and over sweeps, umpas, he’s looking to jump guillotines, he’s doing it all. Flying triangles, he does it all.
“You got Movsar Evloev, mostly just grappling, gets to that Dagestani position that they are known for, where they get behind you, kind of just lock their hands and hang out there,” Sterling added. “But if they get to triangle your legs and beat you up, then they take advantage and they grind you down until you are like nothing. Very tough matchups both of them. I think that my wrestling would easily go toe-to-toe with Evloev, easily. I don’t think there’s any difference in how good his wrestling is compared to mine. I don’t know if he has a judo or sambo background. That could maybe add a little bit of wrinkle to the game. But some of the guys he’s grappled with, I’ve grappled with them and I’d like to think, even when I’m out of shape… and I have grappled with those guys, I’m pretty competitive. So that’s just my honest assessment. That would be a head-to-head fight where whoever gets the takedown first – tt might even end up just being like, ‘You know what, either one of us don’t wanna exert too much energy in the grappling’ — maybe Evloev and I just end up standing up.”
Sterling’s comments have already caught the attention of the unbeaten 5th ranked Evloev, who is now on-board with the idea of fighting the No.15 placed ‘Funk Master’.
“[Aljamain Sterling], brave for you to talk about me,” Evloev wrote on X. “I like it! Call UFC and fight me. I’m ready.”
