Ex-UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill was thoroughly impressed by Sean O’Malley’s world title-winning performance at UFC 292.
Saturday night saw the emergence of a new bantamweight king as ‘Sugar’ landed a perfectly-timed counter right hand that sent former champ Aljamain Sterling crashing to the canvas inside Boston’s iconic TD Garden. The finish sent fighters and fans into an absolute frenzy, including O’Malley’s fellow DWCS alumnus, Jamahal Hill.
‘Sweet Dreams’ took to his YouTube channel immediately following Saturday’s stacked pay-per-view event in Bean Town and heaped a ton of praise on O’Malley’s star-making victory.
“He set up a beautiful shot. A beautiful right hand that caught Aljo on the way in and [O’Malley] was able to hop on him, land some follow-up shots, and finish the fight to become the new bantamweight champion,” Hill said.
“This win just catapults him into stardom. [It adds] more legitimacy to the Dana White’s Contender Series show with him being the second one off of that [to win a title] and I’ve said it for a while now. Sean is good. Sean is very good. Sean understands striking. He understands space. He understands movement. He understands angles. He understands a lot of the same things that I understand within my striking, to a degree. It’s all the same. It’s all the understanding that a bunch of elite-level strikers have.
“His athleticism is incredible. His movement. His patience. The confidence just goes without saying. He looked good. Just dialed in. He had a good walkout song too. He wanted to be a superstar and I think this does catapult him into that stratosphere.”
Sean O'Malley is the new Bantamweight champion after delivering a series of headshots to Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292. pic.twitter.com/81IGktLQ2Q
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 20, 2023
Jamahal Hill Addresses the Heavily-Debated Stoppage at UFC 292
Jamahal Hill also praised the demeanor of former champ Aljamain Sterling following the devastating loss.
“It’s tough man. From everything that I’ve seen. Posts and everything, he’s handling it like a man. Like a champion,” Hill added. “He’s handling it as you wanted to see. I was able to catch his post-fight interview in the press conference and he just spoke real. That was good to see. That was solid. That was a side of him that I’ve seen just hanging out with him and having interactions with him.”
The loss is Sterling’s first in more than five years, snapping a nine-fight losing streak.
Following the fight, many fans online were crying foul, suggesting that the stoppage by referee Marc Goddard was premature. Though Sterling did not offer any criticism of the stoppage himself, Hill, like many, believes that the ‘Funk Master’ could have been given more time to recover.
“Do I feel like that he could have let the fight go on a little bit more? Yeah, I do believe he could have gave Aljo a little bit more of a chance, but the face plant. That hard shot coming down, and then the fact that he was rolling over giving up his back was the reason why you can’t really say much about the stoppage,” Hill concluded.
