Aljamain Sterling and Brendan Schaub meet up to discuss the upcoming bout between Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski.
Aljamain Sterling is fresh off his UFC bantamweight title defense against TJ Dillashaw at UFC 280. He has now defended his belt twice and is looking at an extended break from competition. Sterling has expressed the difficulty of his last few months having to undergo two hard training camps and cut weight twice to 135 pounds. He did however keep the door open for a run at featherweight in the future.
Sterling has been on a roll inside of the cage and has been doing a great job of running a successful and entertaining YouTube channel outside of the cage. He often can be seen breaking down fights on his channel and elsewhere. Recently he joined former UFC fighter Brendan Schaub in his channel to discuss the possible upcoming fight between lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
Aljamain Sterling and Brendan Schaub talk about the lightweight title fight and who to watch in the featherweight division
Sterling sat down with Schaub for an episode of his show called Food Truck Diaries. They got on the topic of Makhachev vs. Volkanovski and chatted about their thoughts on both fighters.
“I can see ways maybe Volkanovski can pull it off. On the outside with his kicks can be an issue, he’ll have a speed advantage. I do think people will be surprised by how strong Volkanovski is,” Schaub said. “I think technique-wise when it comes to wrestling and boxing, with Makhachev going forward, I think stamina is gonna be, cardio is gonna be on Volkanovski’s side. It’s just I was never that high on Makhahcev, everyone told me how good he was and I hate when people tell me how good a guy is. I’m not seeing it and then when I saw what he did to Charles Oliveira, I was like, you guys aren’t bullsh-ting, this dude is good. He’s going to be the lightweight champ for some time.”
Sterling chimed in on the skills of Volkanovski as well.
“Yeah, tough fight. I think the stylistic matchup, I think the speed, the faints of Volkanovski. He does this level change thing that is so subtle, but quick twitch movements, and he will do that inside leg kick, utilize that,” Sterling said. “He will just keep touching, keep touching, kind of get you a little bit frustrated, and pull out your attack, and then he’ll be able to tie you up. Or he land that one-two, that he does so well. He’s a small dude so he punches up. But he does a great job of doing that. His timing is always on point.”
Both men were high on both champions. Volkanovski was granted the title fight with Makhachev after he agreed to be the backup for the UFC 280 title fight. He was then promised the winner of Makhachev and Oliveira and that seems to be the next step for him. With Volkanovski moving up that leaves a gap in the featherweight division. Sterling and Schaub talked about this as well and both men agreed that Arnold Allen had a great showing in his last outing and Schaub called him the dark horse of that division.
