Aljamain Sterling takes a moment against Takeya Mizugaki before their bantamweight bout during a UFC Fight Night event (Photo by Alex Trautwig/Getty Images)
Aljamain Sterling faces champion Petr Yan for the Bantamweight title at UFC 256
Aljamain Sterling believes his time has finally come after battling hard for a UFC Bantamweight title shot.
The Funk Master has been in excellent form in recent years but somehow Dana White didn’t seem interested in giving him a title shot.
However, form and quality have come to his rescue and he will take on Petr Yan at UFC 256. There were some doubts about this clash taking place with White being coy and not naming Sterling.
Normally, the main event of all UFC shows are title fights but there are talks of a super fight replacing this.
Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier was set for 2021 but the Irishman wants to fight now. This could become the main event but Sterling wasn’t worried about this. He was speaking on the Schmozone podcast and didn’t mind not being the top fight on the card:
“Honestly, I am OK with it. I mean, Conor has put his time in, Dustin Poirier has put his time in, both former champions, I don’t see anything wrong with it.
“I think it is a big enough name, they can draw, that’s what the UFC wants. I know for PPVs they want to have title fights, they do have that title fight so, I am good with them doing most of the media and we will just kick back a little bit.
“I am sure Yan will be happy because he gets PPV points but me, I don’t get anything till I take the belt from him.
“I don’t care either way, I just think it would be huge to have that ambiance of the fight card being that much bigger with McGregor coming back for a rematch with Dustin Poirier.”
McGregor and Poirier being the main event would bring in a lot of PPV buys. The Irishman is one of the top MMA stars of all-time and any fight of his gets buys from across the world.
Sterling was asked about the extra money from being in the main event but the Funk Master was open in saying he had never had a co-main event slot, let alone a main event one:
“I think there is a main event bonus that you get, I think. But, I have never main evented, so I wouldn’t know.
“I have never co-main evented, so I wouldn’t know that either.”
Sterling added that this title fight doesn’t feel different for him as he had been here for a long time. It will be interesting to see how he does in the biggest fight of his career though.
Yan has looked impressive and winning the belt would be a big boost for the Russian. However, this seems to be Sterling’s time to shine and he might just make UFC 256 the best night of his MMA career.
This was an exclusive interview from The Schmozone Podcast. For more exclusive interviews and content please follow the link.
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