Aljamain Sterling reveals plans for dream fight in return to UFC: ‘It’d be nice to shake it up wih him’
Off the back of his sophomore featherweight outing, former champion, Aljamain Sterling has an ideal opponent in mind for his return to the UFC later this year — welcoming the chance to take on British contender, Arnold Allen in a high-stakes third outing at 145lbs.
Sterling, a former undisputed bantamweight champion, made his featherweight divisional bow back in April at UFC 300, landing a one-sided unanimous decision win over stalwart contender, Calvin Kattar in a preliminary card showdown.
And returning at UFC 310 just last month, Uniondale star, Aljamain Sterling suffered a unanimous decision loss to surging Russian contender, Movsar Evloev, failing to hand the former M-1 Global gold holder his first-ever mixed martial arts defeat.
Aljamain Sterling welcomes fight with Arnold Allen in return to the UFC
And yet to book his comeback to the Octagon for his third outing at the featherweight limit, Serra-Longo MMA staple, Aljamain Sterling namedropped a potential pairing with Ipswitch native, Allen next — claiming he would like to “shake it up” with the highly-touted contender.
It’ll be nice to shake it up with Arnold Allen,” Aljamain Sterling told Ariel Helwani for Uncrowned. “I think he’s a tough striker. And believe it or not, I wouldn’t be, I’m interested in seeing what my striking game looks like at 45 with a guy like that, because I don’t have to force the wrestling or worry about being taken down as much.”
“I mean, maybe he will be the one shooting on me. I mean, I always have that, right? But I think it gives me an opportunity to work on my striking at this point in my career and see where my striking is actually at without the threat of having to get taken down. With Mosar, I was worried that he was gonna try to take me down. I think he only got reversals. I don’t even think he actually got takedowns on me. Like, now that I think about it, yeah
So, and it’s just so instinctual for me to get to, like, shoot for the takedown off of my strikes, just because we drilled him so often that I wanted to stand up with him and keep the fight standing, and I didn’t get to do that. It worked so much on the standup, and I think he said the same thing, and it ended up just being a big grappling fight. And I think with Arnold, now that I have the comfortability of knowing in the back of my mind, he’s not gonna be looking to actively take me down.
I think I could have some chance to show the world my striking. I think it would be a fun fight. I think it would be a fun fight. I really do.”
