Off the again of his sophomore featherweight outing, former champion, Aljamain Sterling has a perfect opponent in thoughts for his return to the UFC later this 12 months — welcoming the prospect to tackle British contender, Arnold Allen in a high-stakes third outing at 145lbs.
Sterling, a former undisputed bantamweight champion, made his featherweight divisional bow again in April at UFC 300, touchdown a one-sided unanimous determination win over stalwart contender, Calvin Kattar in a preliminary card showdown.
And returning at UFC 310 simply final month, Uniondale star, Aljamain Sterling suffered a unanimous determination loss to surging Russian contender, Movsar Evloev, failing at hand the previous M-1 International gold holder his first-ever blended martial arts defeat.
Aljamain Sterling welcomes battle with Arnold Allen in return to the UFC
And but to e-book his comeback to the Octagon for his third outing on the featherweight restrict, Serra-Longo MMA staple, Aljamain Sterling namedropped a possible pairing with Ipswitch native, Allen subsequent — claiming he want to “shake it up” with the highly-touted contender.
It’ll be good to shake it up with Arnold Allen,” Aljamain Sterling informed 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.”
“It’d be nice to shake it up with Arnold Allen… I’m interested in seeing what my striking game looks like at [145lbs] with a guy like that.”
Who’s down for Aljamain Sterling x Arnold Allen? 👀 pic.twitter.com/BkRc8SG5on
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) January 21, 2025
“I imply, possibly he would be the one capturing on me. I imply, I all the time have that, proper? However I believe it offers me a possibility to work on my placing at this level in my profession and see the place my placing is definitely at with out the specter of having to get taken down. With Mosar, I used to be frightened that he was gonna attempt to take me down. I believe he solely bought reversals. I don’t even suppose he truly bought takedowns on me. Like, now that I give it some thought, yeah
So, and it’s simply so instinctual for me to get to, like, shoot for the takedown off of my strikes, simply because we drilled him so typically that I needed to face up with him and preserve the battle standing, and I didn’t get to do this. It labored a lot on the standup, and I believe he mentioned the identical factor, and it ended up simply being a giant grappling battle. And I believe with Arnold, now that I’ve the comfortability of realizing behind my thoughts, he’s not gonna be trying to actively take me down.
I believe I may have some probability to indicate the world my placing. I believe it might be a enjoyable battle. I believe it might be a enjoyable battle. I actually do.”
