Aljamain Sterling hopes he and Chase Hooper can put on a show in the ADXC 2 headliner.
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] hopes he and [autotag]Chase Hooper[/autotag] can put on a show in the ADXC 2 headliner.
Sterling and Hooper will face off in a no-gi welterweight grappling match on Jan. 19 at Mubadala Arena in Abu Dhabi.
“The Funkmaster” was visibly upset after losing on points to Kevin Dantzler in the Fury Pro Grappling 8 main event less than two weeks ago, ripping the scoring system. Sterling criticized Dantzler for laying on his back but doesn’t expect Hooper to take a similar inactive approach – or at least he hopes not.
“Chase is long, he’s wiry, he’s got unorthodox attacks and things like that, so I think that’s what’s going to make him tough,” Sterling told MMA Junkie. “I don’t know how strong he is. I know he’s going up a weight class, 155 now. He beat Jordan Leavitt who’s a pretty solid grappler, someone I’ve grappled with out here in Vegas multiple times. I was pretty impressed with what he was able to do. But, yeah, I expect him to make it an entertaining match.
“I’m not expecting him to go out there and full-on wrestle me. I would like to go for some kind of submission, get some scrambles going. I just would like for it to be a high-paced, fun matchup to get people who have never watched jiu-jitsu, and they’re either fans of myself or Chase, to get them to want to tune in and buy in to see what jiu-jitsu is all about and what it can be. So, hopefully that’s what we get to give the fans.”
Former 135-pound champion Sterling makes his featherweight debut against Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 on April 13. Grappling a larger opponent in Hooper will serve as valuable prep for Sterling as he ventures into a new weight class.
“100 percent,” Sterling said. “I don’t think Calvin Kattar’s going to be as flexible as Chase Hooper and as well-versed in grappling as Chase Hooper, but I think this gives me the body type, it gives me the body weight to compete against, the height.
“So, I get to see all these different things with someone who actually knows what they’re really doing in these positions and they’re actually a threat of finishing submission moves against myself. So, this is all about getting prepped for the main goal which is UFC 300.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.
With a featherweight debut booked for UFC 300, former UFC champ Aljamain Sterling says he’s done fighting at bantamweight.
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] has closed the door on bantamweight ahead of his chance in divisions for UFC 300.
Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC), the most successful champion in the history of UFC’s 135-pound weight class, revealed he’s done fighting in division that’s been home for the entirety of his MMA career.
The declaration comes after Sterling lost UFC gold to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August, and now has a featherweight fight booked against Calvin Kattar (23-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) on the April 13 card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“Safe to say (I’m done at bantamweight),” Sterling told MMA Junkie. “One of my managers was asking about that, about going down to 135, and I said, ‘Brother, let’s stop this conversation right here.’
“There’s no more 135. I didn’t even want to do it the last time. Whatever, I’m not going to bring it up again because people are going to say I’m making excuses, but this is all factual, but 135 is done.”
Sterling, 34, believes the additional 10 pounds on his frame will provide a second wind to his fighting career given that he’s not depleting himself cutting so much weight. Sterling sees his 145-pound debut at UFC 300 as a new beginning, and aspires to duplicate his success.
“I’m excited to get back,” Sterling said. “I think that’s the most important thing. I want the fans to know I’m excited to get back, and I’m going to have new life, new energy at this weight class.
“I’m definitely nervous because I’m used to being the bigger guy even though I don’t get that big when I rehydrate at 135, but I think I left some stuff in the gym cutting down to 135, so I’d like to see what I can do at 145, and I’m going to shock the world.”
Aljamain Sterling can picture taking out Calvin Kattar early.
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] can picture taking out [autotag]Calvin Kattar[/autotag] early.
Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) meets Kattar (23-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) in his featherweight debut at UFC 300 on April 13 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The former bantamweight champion has been able to take down the majority of his opponents, but won’t be seeking that right away – not until he gets accustomed to his new weight class during the fight.
“I feel like it could be first or second round if it were to get to that position,” Sterling said on submitting Kattar on his YouTube channel. “But honestly, I’m not going to go hunting for a takedown right out of the gate. I kind of want to get my feet wet a little bit, kind of like how (Deiveson Figueiredo) did. Just feel the power, feel the pushback, and then kind of go from there.
“Just feel the fight – let the fight come to me and not rush it. Do what I normally used to do – take my time and just see what comes to me, vs. trying to push the action to go on vacation. Now I’m out of vacation mode. I’m ready to scrap. I’m ready to compete. I got a burnout break, so I just feel like I have a fresh lease on my career.”
Kattar has only been submitted once in what was just his fourth professional fight in 2008. Meanwhile, Sterling has eight submissions on his resume, most recently a first-round rear-naked choke of top contender Cory Sandhagen in June 2020.
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.
Former UFC bantamweight champ Aljamain Sterling admits he let loose a little too much after losing his title.
Former UFC bantamweight champion [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] admits he let loose a little too much after losing his title.
After dropping the belt to Sean O’Malley in August at UFC 292, Sterling ballooned in weight. That’s partially because “The Funkmaster” is currently working toward a move to featherweight but not entirely.
Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) always has been a big 135 pounder, but he never failed to appear in impeccable shape on fight night. However, his knack for indulging in sweets made that process a little harder.
“I do wonder how much I’m going to blow up to after the fight,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “Whenever I make 135, I’m almost – just about the last five years, I’ve pretty much always hit 180. Like your body is holding on to everything, blowing back up, so I do wonder if I’m going to do the same thing. I got a sweet tooth and even though I’m not only eating candies and chocolates, it almost feels like a bottomless pit.
“Like you can’t help yourself. You’re telling yourself to stop eating, but somehow your hands are still moving towards the fridge, your legs are still walking towards the fridge, your fingers are dialing DoorDash and Uber Eats. Somehow you’re still ordering food when you know you don’t want anything. It’s like a sickness.”
In his featherweight debut, Sterling draws top contender Calvin Kattar (23-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) on April 13 at UFC 300 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Because of his recent lifestyle, the transition has been a bit of a struggle and has impacted his cardio.
“Right now I’m just tired,” Sterling said. “I do one to two rounds of striking, and I’m exhausted. Also (I’m) moving around and trying to do what I do when I’m lighter. Those eight to nine weeks of drinking every single day and hookah non-stop, staying up late at night, it definitely took a toll on my lungs, so I still feel like I’m battling back from and trying to gain all that. We sparred, and I felt like I had a relatively solid day except when I went with Julian Erosa.
“I did some good stuff, but there’s still some things I’m having trouble with because of the height difference. (He’s 6-foot-1) and fights at 145. There’s going to be some things I need to figure out where I was closer to being the tallest guy at bantamweight. Now you got Sean Woodson, you got Julian Erosa, you got some of these guys who are just like trees, so I’ve got to figure out the game with that. Taking them down, being able to maintain control for longer periods of time, working the threshold and understanding all of that.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.
Aljamain Sterling thought UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley was supposed to be this big draw or something.
UFC bantamweight champion [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] apparently is not the pay-per-view draw [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] thought he was.
Sterling (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) lost his title to O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) by second-round knockout this past August at UFC 292. The O’Malley fight happened just over three months after a successful five-round title defense against Henry Cejudo in which Sterling felt pressured into making a quicker turnaround than he wanted.
After looking at the UFC 292 pay-per-view buys, Sterling questions O’Malley’s star power.
“I got the pay-per-view numbers, and me and her were going through it, and I’m just like, ‘These are the numbers that this guy was trying to say he’s this big pay-per-view star?'” Sterling said on his YouTube channel without revealing the specific figure. “I’m just like, ‘Oh my God.’ When I saw the numbers, I literally said to her, ‘If I had any idea this is what the numbers would have been, if I could have predicted that this is what it would have been, my ass would have waited and taken my vacation then.'”
In hindsight, Sterling admits he probably shouldn’t have taken the O’Malley fight so soon.
“I rolled the dice,” Sterling said. “I trusted that the bag was going to be this blow-me-away kind of thing, bigger than all the other ones. It wasn’t. With that being said, it is what it is. I’m still happy I made some extra money. I had a really good year. I can’t complain about that. Life’s good. I can take care of myself. I can take care of my family.”
Following the loss to O’Malley, Sterling announced his intention of moving up to featherweight. He draws top contender Calvin Kattar (23-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) at UFC 300 on April 13 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Check out a full recap of 2023’s most significant footnotes and milestones from the events, the fights and individual performances.
Now that the year has come to a close, and with a major assist from UFC research analyst and live statistics producers Michael Carroll, here are some of 2023’s most significant milestones from the events, the fights and individual performances.
All the UFC fight announcements that were first reported or confirmed by MMA Junkie in the past week.
MMA fight announcements are hard to follow. With so many outlets and channels available, it’s nearly impossible to organize.
But here at MMA Junkie, we’ve got your back.
Each week, we’ll compile all the newly surfaced fights in one spot. Every Monday, expect a feature listing everything you might have missed from the UFC.
Here are the fight announcements that were broken or confirmed by MMA Junkie or officially announced by the promotions from Dec. 18-24.
Aljamain Sterling understands the business of the UFC but hopes to eventually have more matchmaking based on “the merit side of things.”
LAS VEGAS – By his own admission, 2023 has been a “long, crazy year” for [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag]. A big reason for that is how his UFC bantamweight championship reign played out and ultimately ended.
Sterling first defended his title May 6 at UFC 288 by winning a split decision against Henry Cejudo. Afterward, he expressed his desire to take just a little time off – one month to decompress – before jumping back into training camp for a fight with Sean O’Malley. The UFC, however, was intent on booking them to headline UFC 292 roughly three months later on Aug. 19.
“It is what it is,” Sterling told MMA Junkie recently on the World MMA Awards red carpet. “I got rushed back a little bit. But I took the fight, no excuses. The better man won that night.”
Given how the overall situation played out, Sterling called for a rematch and expected he would get it. After all, his three consecutive title defenses prior to the loss set a new bantamweight record. If not an immediate rematch for himself, Sterling hoped the next title shot would go to his good friend and teammate, Merab Dvalishvili, who is on a nine-fight winning streak.
Instead, the UFC booked O’Malley’s first title defense against Marlon Vera in March at UFC 299. The issue with that matchmaking is that Vera (No. 6) is lower than Sterling (No. 1) and Dvalishvili (No. 2) in the official UFC bantamweight rankings, with a loss in March to Cory Sandhagen, who’s also ahead of him at No. 4, on his recent resume. But the fight between O’Malley and Vera sells itself given Vera is responsible for O’Malley’s only career defeat in August 2020, and the champ wants his revenge.
That doesn’t exactly sit well with Sterling.
“We know how the UFC works,” Sterling said. “It’s a little bit more on popularity sometimes and a business standpoint. And I get that. I would eventually like for us to get to the merit side of things. That’s what I’m all about.”
One contributing factor to the UFC often veering from a meritocracy in place of entertainment could be that not enough fighters speak out the way Sterling does. He wishes that would change.
“A hundred percent, but at the end of the day, it’s the UFC’s show,” Sterling said. “They run the business. They see the dollar signs before anything else, so I get that aspect of it. They’ve got to feed themselves, they’ve got to feed us, and they’ve got to feed their shareholders now. I get all that. I do wish some of these fighters would step up and bang the drum a little bit. Because that’s what I got into the sport for: I want to face the best. There’s only three guys I’ve ever fought that were not ranked; everybody else I’ve fought had been ranked. Some of these other guys are building up their resumes on unranked fighters, guys who are no longer here, and I think you could look down the list of the guys I’ve faced, the guys Merab faced, and it’s nothing but a killer’s row.
“I like that side of it. I don’t like easy fights. I think that’s one of the things I think about anyone else who kind of goes through that fire. I think it says a lot more about you as a person.”
Aljamain Sterling at the UFC 292 pre-event news conference.
As the UFC landscape currently is constructed, fighters who hope merit reigns supreme don’t have much leverage in deciding their career paths as the promotion has shown a willingness to move on to the next contender when there’s pushback. Without unionization or collective bargaining, there’s likely no way for fighters to collaboratively stand up for themselves. Instead, they rely on their managers fighting for them at the negotiating table.
Given only a few managers represent a large quantity of fighters on the UFC roster, that could be one way for fighters to band together in certain situations and perhaps create real change. Sterling isn’t optimistic.
“That’s a tough one, because I don’t think those managers are gonna do that,” Sterling said. “I don’t want to say too much to bite my nose to spite my face kind of a thing. There’s a lot I could say about managers, and I think they’re looking out for their best interests more than they’re looking out for their fighters. I think that’s the most political answer I can give. I don’t think there’s ever gonna be a time where they’re gonna be on the fighters’ side. It’s more about their pockets, how many athletes they can get, and how many different ways they can get paid.”
Ultimately, Sterling questions how much negotiating goes on between managers and UFC brass, and he wishes more fighters would wake up to a situation he believes is unfair to them.
“Behind the scenes, I’ve tried talking some sense into these guys,” Sterling said. “I’m not trying to piss anybody off, like I said, but there are a lot of fighters that do not need to have management, because those managers are not doing anything for those guys to elevate their careers, respectfully. Some of these guys do good work, but some of these guys don’t. If it’s only answer the phone, ‘Hey, this is the opponent.’ What do I need you for? Why am I actually paying you a chunk of my money when that money could be used for my coaches, extra hotel rooms, extra flights, car service, whatever you need to actually feel like a professional athlete, or recovery – things like that. Instead we’re paying it to a guy who’s answering the phone and is telling me, ‘This is your opponent.’ My little sister can do that. …
“If you’re gonna be a manager, all I’m saying is: Managers, manage the career, not your pockets.”
The historic UFC 300 lineup has its first trio of fights as UFC CEO Dana White rolled out some matchups on Thursday.
The historic UFC 300 lineup has its first trio of fights as UFC CEO Dana White rolled out some matchups on Thursday.
After teasing a loaded lineup for the monumental April 13 event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the opening slate of matchups features two former champions and one of the top undefeated prospects in the sport.
White took to social media and revealed former light heavyweight champ [autotag]Jiri Prochazka[/autotag] (29-4-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) will take on [autotag]Aleksandar Rakic[/autotag] (14-3 MMA, 6-2 UFC), former bantamweight champion [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] (23-4 MMA, 15-4 UFC) makes his featherweight debut vs. [autotag]Calvin Kattar[/autotag] (23-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC), and rising middleweight star [autotag]Bo Nickal[/autotag] (5-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) clashes with [autotag]Cody Brundage[/autotag] (10-5 MMA, 4-4 UFC).
Prochazka, No. 3 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie light heavyweight rankings, will attempt to rebound from his vacant title fight loss to Alex Pereira at UFC 295 in November, where he was stopped by second-round TKO. He’ll be charged with welcoming back No. 8-ranked Rakic, who hasn’t competed since he blew out his knee in an injury TKO loss to Jan Blachowicz at UFC on ESPN 36 in May 2022.
Kattar, No. 11 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie featherweight rankings, will also try to rebound from a knee injury TKO loss against Arnold Allen in October 2022 when he welcomes No. 3-ranked bantamweight Sterling to a new division after he dropped the belt to Sean O’Malley by second-round TKO at UFC 292 in August.
Lastly, Nickal will try to add to his hype at 185-pounds following a 38-second knockout of Val Woodburn at UFC 290 in July when he meets Brundage, who is coming off a historic slam knockout at UFC on ESPN 52 this month.
The latest UFC 300 lineup now includes:
Jiri Prochazka vs. Aleksandar Rakic
Calvin Kattar vs. Aljamain Sterling
Cody Brundage vs. Bo Nickal
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.
Aljamain Sterling has booked himself another grappling match.
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] has booked another grappling match.
Submission specialists Sterling and [autotag]Chase Hooper[/autotag] will face off in a no-gi welterweight bout to headline ADXC 2 on Jan. 19 at Mubadala Arena in Abu Dhabi. A person with knowledge of the matchup confirmed the booking to MMA Junkie but asked to remain anonymous since the promotion has yet to make an official announcement.
Former UFC bantamweight champion Sterling currently is slated to face Kevin Dantzler in the Fury Pro Grappling 8 headliner Dec. 30 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. The event streams on UFC Fight Pass.
Sterling competed in a grappling match this past September and defeated ex-UFC fighter Mike Grundy by unanimous decision at Polaris 25 in Wales. “The Funkmaster” currently is gearing up for his featherweight debut – a decision he made official shortly after he lost the bantamweight title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August.
Hooper has grappled twice under the Fury Pro Grappling banner. He lost a decision to UFC lightweight Renato Moicano in December 2021, then submitted longtime UFC fighter Clay Guida with a calf slicer this past December at Fury Pro Grappling 6. The 24-year-old also has his first winning streak in the octagon after back-to-back wins over Nick Fiore and Jordan Leavitt.
