Sterling: UFC Offered Me Kattar At 145

Aljamain Sterling won’t be getting the do-over he wanted.

Instead, newly-crowned bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, will make his first 135-pound title defense in a rematch against longtime division rival Marlon Vera at the upcoming UFC 299 pay-per-view (PPV) event in March.

That decision is likely to ship Sterling to the 145-pound weight class, a move he’s been teasing for several years. In fact, the promotion is already sending him a list of potential featherweight opponents for his eventual 2024 return.

Including No. 7-ranked Calvin Kattar.

“So some breaking news, I was offered Kattar, amongst three others,” Sterling said on YouTube. “Two of the guys were actually friends so I said I would respectfully like to decline those. One of them was coming off a loss. Kattar was the highest ranking one out of all of them. I’m supposed to go to the [Performance Institute] this week and do some testing and see what my numbers look like compared to everybody else. I don’t pride myself on being the fastest, strongest most athletic or smartest guy when it comes to sports, but I think I do a pretty good job of showing up on game day and putting it together.”

Sterling was stopped by O’Malley at UFC 292 earlier this year in Boston. Losing to “Suga” snapped a nine-fight win streak for the former bantamweight champ, who has not been shy about his recent struggles to maintain a bantamweight physique.

“I like Kattar, I’m just not really looking to go up and take a chance,” Sterling continued. “I don’t mind taking a chance, but I’m not going up to say, ‘Hey, I’m coming here for second place.’ If I go up, I’m going up to be number one. There’s no half-assing this process. That’s the thing I have to figure out. I just don’t want to hit Kattar and then it goes, he doesn’t feel it. I would love to see what would happen actually happen if I just sit down the way I’ve been hitting pads, and just crack someone for once.”

Kattar has yet to comment on the potential booking.