Aljamain Sterling (image via UFC/YouTube)

By FCF Staff

For some time now, Aljamain Sterling has said his next fight will likely be his last at bantamweight. As UFC 292 nears, it sounds like that’s still the champ’s plan.

Sterling is booked to fight Sean O’Malley at the August 19th event, which will take place Saturday in Boston. The 34-year-old Sterling is targeting a run at featherweight if he defeats the rising star.

During a recent appearance on “The MMA Hour”, Sterling repeated he hopes to leave the division so that his teammate Merab Dvalishvili can fight for the belt (quotes via MMA Fighting).

“It’s Merab’s time, man,” Sterling said. “And the second part of that is, I’m a little bit over cutting weight, this much weight. I walk around 165, 170 [pounds]. I think I could hold that frame relatively better, and I think cipf-es.org my conditioning and everything could actually go up a little bit more, back to when I was younger, where I was cutting less.

“I’m 34 now, so I think I just wanna get ahead of it before it gets ahead of me.”

Sterling (23-3) is coming off a split-decision win over former champ Henry Cejudo in May. The victory was Sterling’s ninth straight and third title defense.

The 28-year-old O’Malley (16-1) hasn’t competed since last October, when recorded a split decision win over former champ Petr Yan.