Former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling has been venting his frustration that Dana White has shown little interest in him getting a title rematch against Sean O’Malley, despite appearing to be on-board with the idea of Israel Adesanya getting an opportunity to win the middleweight belt back from Sean Strickland.
“I’m not even thinking about that right now,” White had told a reporter with a shrug when asked post-fight at UFC 292 whether he’d be open to giving Sterling a rematch with O’Malley after being TKO’d by him in the second round.
On the other hand, after watching Strickland beat Adesanya on the scorecards at UFC 293 he immediately seemed interested in running that fight back.
“I think you do the rematch,” White told reporters backstage. “Absolutely. The rematch is interesting.”
That appears to have upset Sterling, who vented about it on his podcast.
“How did you give him another title shot, and then you tell me I don’t deserve it?” Sterling argued on his Weekly Skraps podcast. “That’s all I’m saying. I’m not knocking Izzy.
“Izzy, if they give you the title shot, brother, take that s*** and run. But what I’m saying it, how do you get it and I don’t? If the fans, Dana, whoever, if they can justify that to me, I’ll be like, ‘Alright, I can see your point.’ But I don’t see the point.”
“What are we talking about?” Sterling continued. “You’re saying his reign was better than mine based on what? I’m giving you guys all these fights and how they played out, which one of these are the ones that stand out? [Paulo] Costa fight was crazy, that was a really good finish, and then the [Alex] Pereira fight, only because he lost and then he comes back in the second fight, and that was a great fight because of the anticipation.”
“I don’t want the fans to get this misconstrued,” Sterling concluded. “I don’t want the UFC brass to get this misconstrued. It’s a business. It’s the entertainment business. It’s not the merit business of No. 1 is supposed to fight No. 2. If it did, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, but that’s not the case.
“This is all about the numbers. Izzy has done what he’s done in the past. He’s a huge figure. Look at his social media following versus Sean [O’Malley]. I just wish there was a little bit more consistency so we knew.”
