Sterling gave his prediction for O’Malley and Vera’s fight

“There’s a good chance that ‘Cheeto’ can beat Sean O’Malley,” said the American in another video posted on his Youtube channel. “People are saying it will be an easy win for Sean, but I know how deep the division is. Right now I’m predicting upsets – Cheeto will beat O’Malley again.”

“If you watch their fight, you’ll see that Sean was doing the same thing then that he’s doing now – he was throwing single punches. “Cheeto just outworked him by throwing one leg kick. Okay, even aside from that kick and its effectiveness, we saw what happened in the parterre. The leg has nothing to do with defense against arm and elbow strikes in the back position. As for the standup, O’Malley is not a knockout artist. He didn’t knock out Petr Yan. Yes, some will say he knocked me out, but he didn’t. Let’s be honest – I ran and set myself up for his punch, just like in the case of Marlon Moraes.”

“If I didn’t run to the punch, I would have stayed standing even if he got hit. He can only put “Cheeto” down if he runs at him, but that’s not going to happen. “Cheeto” will act as usual – he will be calm and patient, keep his hands high and hit long leg kicks. Other than that, he’s very resilient. I think we saw all of that in his fight with Corey Sandhagen. He also has a big gas tank and Shawn gets tired. I’m not sounding like a hater, I’m just calling things as they are. The likelihood of Cheeto throwing an upsets is pretty high.”

This August at UFC 292 in Boston, Sean O’Malley took the flyweight championship belt away from Aljamain Sterling, finishing his compatriot by technical knockout in the second round before announcing his intention to make his first defense against Marlon Vera, who handed him the only defeat of his career three years ago.

The title fight between the American and the Ecuadorian is reportedly set to take place in the first quarter of next year.