"It's a nightmare" - Sean O'Malley's coach admits that training to fight Aljamain Sterling has been 'nerve-racking'

It’s UFC 292 fight week and fans are excited to watch Sean O’Malley challenge Aljamain Sterling for the UFC bantamweight title. ‘Sugar’ is going up against the biggest challenge of his MMA career in Aljamain Sterling and his coach agrees that it has been a nerve-racking experience to train for a championship fight.

While speaking about the upcoming title fight in an interview with Submission Radio, Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch was asked to share his experience of training fighters for a championship fight.

Welch stated that it has been a very stressful experience for the camp, especially because of the champion’s well-rounded skillset. Welch said:

“I think it has been nerve-racking, just because of the challenges ahead. I mean, Aljo’s so strong and he’s so funky on the feet. When he grabs a hold of you it’s a nightmare. So it’s a little bit more nerves than usual because Aljo is such a beast.”

But Welch believes that fighting the champion in a big cage for five minutes will be fun, implying that both fighters will have plenty of opportunities to get an upper hand.

You can watch Tim Welch talk about preparing to fight Aljamain Sterling from the 1:00 mark of the video below:

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Tim Welch thinks Aljamain Sterling can get KO’d if he misses his timing against Sean O’Malley

Aljamain Sterling’s ‘backpack style’ grappling-heavy fighting has enabled him to get past some of the most lethal strikers like Petr Yan and Cory Sandhagen in recent years. However, Welch believes that ‘Sugar’ can use his creative striking to his advantage and catch Aljamain Sterling in the fight.

Continuing further in the interview with Submission Radio, Tim Welch stated that fighters often try to stalk Sean O’Malley in an attempt to take the fight to the ground. However, most of them have failed.

The coach believes that Sterling will open the opportunity for a flash knockout if he misses times his takedown attempts or grappling efforts wrongly against Sean O’Malley.

“I think Aljo is such a good athlete. He’s so funky that he’s going to take the risks and he’s going to try to grab Sean. He’s going to take a big risk. And that’s also going to open up the knockout for us," Welch said.

He added:

"Like I said, Sean can knock people out with every one of his limbs. So if [Sterling] lunges in at the wrong time then he could get some knuckles bounced off his chin and it could be the end of the night.”

The bantamweight title fight between undisputed champion Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley will headline the UFC 292 pay-per-view event that takes place on August 19, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts.