UFC 299: Aljamain Sterling Suggests UFC 300 Sabotaged by Sean O'Malley Fight
Aljamain Sterling believes that UFC 300 missed out on some massive fights so the promotion could stack UFC 299 for Sean O’Malley’s first bantamweight title defense.
“Funk Master” successfully defended the UFC bantamweight belt three times before he was stopped by O’Malley at UFC 292, and now the 34-year-old is set to make his featherweight debut opposite Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 on April 13.
A number of MMA fans have noted that UFC 299 features several fights that could have helped make UFC 300 the massive spectacle promised by Dana White, and Sterling recently suggested the promotion might be trying to provide “Sugar” with some extra star power for his fight in Miami.
O'Malley took Sterling's bantamweight title at UFC 292.
(Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports)
“It’s just kinda funny that the UFC felt the need to stack [UFC 299] so much to make it feel like Sean is the draw,” Sterling said on The MMA Hour. “It’s actually comical, because I know people were kinda trying to s*** on [UFC] 300. I’m like ‘Well, a lot of those fights that people probably would have wanted were on 299 for whatever reasons.’…You wanna build somebody up, you build up and you bring the other eyeballs with all these other people.”
Headlined by O’Malley’s rematch with Marlon “Chito” Vera, UFC 299 also features a co-main event between Dustin Poirier and Benoit Saint-Denis, as well as the return of former champion Petr Yan and the promotional debut of Michael “Venom” Page.
UFC 300 does feature a number of fantastic matchups to go along with Sterling’s featherweight debut against Kattar, but even though White is expected to announce the card’s main event later this week a few of the bigger fights on UFC 299 could easily have featured as part of the promotion’s milestone event in Las Vegas.
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