Aljamain Sterling believes he can earn a title shot with a win over Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 on Saturday.
Sterling is set to move up to featherweight to face Kattar in an intriguing matchup, as ‘Funkmaster’ is moving up in weight after he suffered a knockout loss to Sean O’Malley to lose his bantamweight title. After the loss, Sterling announced he would be moving up in weight, and will face Kattar on Saturday.
Aljamain Sterling enters the matchup as the betting favorite, and he believes a win over Calvin Kattar could earn him a title shot against Ilia Topuria next time out.
“I think so. I think if Max goes out there and he wins, I think I go out there and I win, and I look good doing it, Ilia Topuria already said what he said. He says there’s no challengers, so why not just skip the line instead of getting in a tough gauntlet of a queue? I mean, the UFC, they do what they want, right? So if they offer you a title fight, you’d be kind of crazy to tell them no. So, if I go out there do my job, I look good on a huge, massive card, the rest will take care of itself,” Sterling said at UFC 300 media day.
Although Aljamain Sterling does think he can get a title shot with a win, it does seem Alexander Volkanovski will get a rematch with Ilia Topuria next time out. But, perhaps if Volkanovski is not ready for when Topuria wants to fight, then Sterling could skip the queue for a title shot if he does win at UFC 300.
Sterling enters his UFC 300 fight with a record of 23-4 and is coming off the loss to O’Malley. Before that, he was on a nine-fight winning streak and had defended his belt three times. In his career, he holds notable wins over Henry Cejudo, TJ Dillashaw, Petr Yan, and Cory Sandhagen.
