Why Aljamain Sterling beats Youssef Zalal at UFC Vegas 116

Aljamain Sterling can probably hear the footsteps.

The longtime Serra-Longo Fight Team rep will guard his ground as a Top 5 featherweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship when he meets Youssef Zalal in the UFC Fight Night 274 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Sterling climbs into the Octagon as a slight underdog against the hard-charging Marc Montoya protégé. Even so, he appears to have multiple paths to victory ahead of his latest high-profile endeavor. A look at three reasons why Sterling beats Zalal in the UFC’s return to Sin City:

Experience

Sterling has been a staple of the UFC roster since Barack Obama was in the White House. He debuted with the company in February 2014, when Zalal was still a teenager. Sterling has accumulated almost twice as many fights in the UFC (22) as his Moroccan counterpart (12). Perhaps more importantly, he has fought beyond the third round five times and gone the full 25 minutes on four different occasions. By comparison, Zalal has never had to push past three rounds. Sterling has also piled up 84 rounds as a pro—31 more than “The Moroccan Devil,” or the equivalent of 10 bouts. Those callouses and guile add another layer to the “Funk Master” package. Sterling owns a 13-3 mark in bouts that reach the judge, while Zalal sports a 4-5 record in such fights.

Wrestling

Sterling starred in the singlet at Uniondale High School and went on to enjoy a successful collegiate career at Morrisville State College and the State University of New York at Cortland, where he was a two-time NCAA All-American at the Division III level, compiled an 87-27 record and twice finished in the Top 10 nationally. Those skills served him well in his transition to mixed martial arts and ultimately paved the way to a standout tenure in the UFC. Sterling has completed a total of 50 takedowns across his 22 appearances inside the Octagon, registering multiple takedowns in 13 of those outings—three of them against Henry Cejudo, a former Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling. Half of Zalal’s opponents in the UFC have taken him down, few of them with Sterling’s credentials.