Aljamain Sterling recently spoke about how his mega-fight with Sean O'Malley performed at the UFC 292 pay-per-view.
The bantamweight title fight was a highly anticipated contest. On the one hand, MMA fans were eager to see whether O'Malley could handle the pressure and wrestling of Sterling and become the UFC champion. On the other, Sterling's fourth title defense and bantamweight legacy kept them interested in the bout.
The former UFC bantamweight champion appeared on The MMA Hour and talked about his recent loss to Sean O'Malley. He looked at the positive side of things after he made a quick turnaround that possibly cost him his title. Aljamain Sterling said:
"[Sean] O'Malley was like the wannabe knockoff Conor McGregor, so I was like let me ride the coattails and see what I could get out of this and I think we did pretty good on the PPV points. So, I'm happy with that, setting the record for the most selling bantamweight title fight in history."
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When host Ariel Helwani asked for the exact numbers, Sterling responded:
"We did good. [laughs] We got a projection and the projection is pretty nice man. So, I'm happy."
Before Aljamain Sterling, Henry Cejudo and Sean O'Malley addressed UFC 292 PPV buys
Former two-weight UFC champion Henry Cejudo claimed that UFC 292 generated around 350,000 pay-per-view buys. In a video on his YouTube channel, he said:
"Guess what guys? I have friends at ESPN... Sean O'Malley did anywhere between 300,000 to 350,000 [buys]. That's it. That’s all Sean O’Malley made in pay-per-view buys."
However, the champion O'Malley came out in response and stated that the UFC told him the event crossed 570,000 pay-per-view buys.
Even Cejudo's claimed numbers are not bad, considering this was O'Malley's first pay-per-view event as a headliner. Also, he was coming in as a challenger.