Aljamain Sterling says loss, Alexander Volkanovski comments a 'bad, bad dream'

On Monday morning former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling took to Twitter to react to the news that featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski no longer wants to fight him after he lost his title to Sean O'Malley at UFC 292.

“Gotta feel for ‘Aljo,’ man,” Volkanovski said on his YouTube channel. “I mean, what does he want to do? He’s definitely going to want that rematch. That’s a big, big fight. [Him vs. me] that’s not happening. You never know, if he would have had a big win he could have took Ilia [Topuria’s] spot but [he didn’t].

Sterling, who lost to O'Malley via a second-round TKO, shared a graphic of the tweet.

"This all still feels like a bad, bad dream. Unfortunately, it’s not. This sport is really something…. I’m just gonna let it fuel me. I’ll be back," he tweeted.

Aljamain Sterling wants a rematch with Sean O'Malley

Directly after the fight, while still in the Octagon, Sterling said he was probably going to reconsider moving to 145 pounds, but that he'd reevaluate later with his team.

In the post-fight presser he expressed his desire to rematch O'Malley first.

“I would love to have a rematch,” Sterling said (h/t MMA Junkie). “… I don’t know which ways I’m going to go with things. I would first and foremost love a chance to run that back and just to get some definitive answers.”

O'Malley on the other hand wants a rematch with Marlon Vera instead of one with Sterling. We'll see who he gets in his first title defense in the coming months.