Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling isn’t done just yet.
Sterling suffered just the second loss in his past 12 fights at the recent UFC 310 card in Las Vegas when he was outpointed by the undefeated Movsar Evloev in what was a fascinating technical battle between two of the 145-pound division’s standout grapplers.
Speaking afterwards, Sterling — who lost his 135-pound title to Sean O’Malley in August 2023 — indicated that he felt that it might be time to hang up his 4oz gloves, with now with some time having passed following his bout with Evloev he says that he is instead leaning towards continuing with his career.
“I want to compete,” Sterling told Ariel Helwani this week, as noted by MMA Fighting.
“I just love it so much. Even when I was at Tampa watching the fights. There’s just something very, very addictive about the walk, the competing, the waiting period.
“The only thing that sucks, honestly, is the weight cut. Weight-cutting is just such a stain on the sport overall, but once that part’s done, the excitement of the training and then going in there competing in front of the world. I don’t think there’s any high like that, there really isn’t.”
But if that is the ‘why’, what about the ‘who’?
“I think [Arnold Allen] London would give me 12 weeks or something like that, or 10,” Sterling suggested.
“I think that’s ideal. This way I can help Merab and then have him finish up his camp for Umar. I can help out Nazim [Sadykhov] for his fight with [Ismael] Bonfim and then I can jumpstart my camp with the Umar camp and be ready for a March turnaround.
“Either him or Ortega, I heard he’s going up to 155. I love Ortega, he’s the man, dude’s super chill, but we’re not best friends or anything, so I don’t have a problem calling him out. It’s not anything disrespectful. … A fight with Ortega if he stays at ‘45, i would love that fight.”
