Aljamain Sterling Assesses Potential Ilia Topuria Fight Ahead Of Featherweight Debut: 'I've Got My Work Cut Out...'

In the past, Sterling has pointed to Topuria as the one name he wanted to avoid at featherweight owing to his Georgian connection with the former bantamweight champ's teammate, Merab Dvalishvili. 

With that evidently out the window now that "El Matador" holds the gold, Sterling looked ahead to a potential showdown with Topuria during a recent episode of his podcast, The Weekly Scraps.

"I think he (Topuria) could be champ for quite some time if he wants to. That's a hard style of fight. I mean, what do you do?" Sterling said. "Ilia can actually wrestle... It's a tough matchup for anybody. Even for me, if I had the opportunity to fight him.

"Say I finish Calvin Kattar, make a big statement, they want something new, want something fresh, the Brian Ortega/Yair (Rodríguez) fight isn't that great; maybe they throw me in there," Sterling continued. "I'm looking at it like, I got my work cut out for me. That's not an easy fight. That's just being as honest as it is. I know I can punch, but it's not how hard you can hit, sometimes you've gotta be able to take that back."

Before looking ahead to a collision in the cage with the Georgian-Spaniard, though, Sterling must first announce his arrival in the division by getting the better of Kattar at the milestone UFC 300 event on April 13.