Aljamain Sterling was a headlining act just two fights ago, but now finds himself off the main card altogether.
For the second fight in a row, “Funk Master” competes on the prelims when he takes on undefeated featherweight contender Movsar Evloev at UFC 310 this Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The card placement is a far cry from where Sterling was just 15 months ago, when he defended the bantamweight title against Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 292. O’Malley defeated Sterling to claim the belt.
Sterling subsequently moved up to 145 pounds, defeating Calvin Kattar in his divisional debut on the UFC 300 prelims, and now has a chance to get back into the title mix if he becomes the first fighter to beat Evloev. Given the stakes of the contest, Sterling isn’t sure why his fight isn’t on the main card.
“I didn’t know if I should have been insulted by the placement on the fight card or glass half full, I guess that’s the best way I try to look at everything in life,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “I get to fight earlier, I get to be done earlier, I get to pop open a fresh bottle of Funk Harbor, hang out with the friends and celebrate a big win.”
“I was a little confused by it, of course,” Sterling continued. “I guess they have their rhyme or reason for what they do, the UFC brass. At the end of the day it’s not my organization, I don’t call the shots, I just go out there and compete, and it’s up to me to go out there and proves these guys wrong that we are and I am a main card fighter. I think people are going to be in for a very big surprise and the UFC is going to realize, ‘We messed up big time by not putting this on the main card.’”
This is not a new dilemma for Sterling. Despite winning 10 of his first 13 UFC fights, Sterling was rarely featured on main cards before competing for and winning the bantamweight title in 2021. He headlined two events as champion, UFC 288 against Henry Cejudo and UFC 292 against O’Malley.
The O’Malley loss still sticks in Sterling’s mind as he agreed to take the fight even though he felt he wasn’t properly prepared. He would later say he felt the UFC “coerced” him into taking the O’Malley fight so soon after the Cejudo fight.
Sterling enters Saturday’s contest having not competed since this past April and he’s grateful for the lengthy layoff. The Evloev matchup was originally scheduled for UFC 307 in October, but Sterling asked for the bout to be postponed so he could address an elbow injury.
“It’s a little bit of a longer extended camp, but I think it just makes me more hungry to get out there,” Sterling said. “I asked for, ironically, an extra month, because Movsar was trying to push me to come back sooner than I wanted to and I told them I’m not going to do that again. I learned my lesson from the last fight, which was my loss to O’Malley, and I told myself I’ll never let somebody push me into a corner over money again.
“At the end of the day, I’ve accomplished what I need to accomplish so now when I compete it’s on my terms, it’s when I feel like coming back, and it’s when I feel good mentally because you have to want to be in there to compete. If not, the octagon is a dangerous place to be unsure if you really want to be in there.”
Evloev has proven to be a difficult puzzle to solve, with an 18-0 record that includes eight UFC victories. The Russian standouts past three wins have all come against ranked competition: Arnold Allen, Diego Lopes, and Dan Ige.
Tasked with being the first fighter to defeat Evloev, Sterling sees him as the next step in his quest to become a two-division champion.
“I’m no stranger to fighting undefeated fighters,” Sterling said. “I’ve turned them back before and I fully intend to do that again. I know a lot of people from his region of the world think he’s got my number, think [I’m] going to be his first finish. That alone is motivation enough to prove them wrong and to smash this guy. Absolutely smash this guy, show that there are levels to this.
“I’ve been a champion before. I’m in a new headspace. I’m a new weight class. My energy levels are better. We’re going to make this a fight. We’re going to make this a dogfight.”
