Aljamain Sterling isn’t done just yet.
The former UFC bantamweight champion moved on from 135 pounds after dropping the title to Sean O’Malley in August 2023. Sterling then made a successful featherweight debut at UFC 300 in April, outwrestling his way to a win over perennial contender Calvin Kattar. That set Sterling up for a top contender clash with the undefeated Movsar Evloev at UFC 310, which he lost in a back-and-forth contest despite his best efforts.
Sterling joined Tuesday’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” to reflect on the performance.
“I’m a little conflicted,” Sterling said. “I still feel like I won it, but obviously, on the record, it’s a loss. So it is what it is. Just got to move onto the next, and this is the guy who was supposed to be the next [featherweight] champion, so it lets me know exactly where I’m at in my career at 145 and what I’m capable of doing.
“I think I’m in a pretty good spot. I think I fight like that against anybody in this division, I think it’s going to be a bad night for them.”
Evloev vs. Sterling was a treat for fans of high-level grappling affairs. The bout featured wild exchanges, transitions and scrambles in an extremely competitive matchup that could’ve gone either way.
At 19-0, Evloev now sits comfortably at the forefront of featherweight title contention — a spot that could’ve been Sterling’s with some minor tweaks.
Since the end of his bantamweight title reign, Sterling has contemplated retirement and how much longer he’ll compete. The immediate aftermath of UFC 310 left fans wondering if the 35-year-old former champion may have made his final Octagon appearance.
But after getting some distance from the experience, Sterling decided he has more fight in him.
“I want to compete, man. I miss it,” Sterling said. “I just love it so much. Even when I was at Tampa watching the fights [this past Saturday], 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.
“Once that part’s done, the excitement of 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. And for me to hang it up when I know I still have gas in the tank, I feel like I would be doing something that I might regret later on, where it’s going to be like, ‘Damn, I wish I would have just done a few more when I know I had the physical capability of still doing it,’ versus when I’m in my 40s and then I’m looking back like, ‘Man, I could have done one more, I should have done it.’
“So that’s where I’m at,” he continued. “But it’s tough to go through a tough training camp like that and to get beat like that. It kind of leaves a sour taste in your mouth, where you’re just like, ‘Man, I did all that just to lose like this in such a close fight?’ There’s a bittersweetness about it. The positives, I know where I’m at. I know I can be the best in the world again. Then the sh**ty part is like, ‘Man, I just did weeks on weeks of training. I did two training camps back to back because of the stupid injury. Just to come up short.’ I would almost rather get beat convincingly, where I’m just like, ‘Ah, there’s nothing I can say.'”
Sterling served as arguably the toughest test of Evloev’s career thus far, matching the Russian’s strong wrestling game better than anyone in the UFC previously had.
Evloev is now poised to potentially challenge UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria sometime in 2025. While the matchup could be an exciting one in the grappling matchup, Sterling believes Evloev needs more improvement on the feet to hang with a talent of Topuria’s caliber.
“I think he could be a future champion,” Sterling said of Evloev. “I don’t think he’s going to be one that’s going to be long-reigning, if you’re asking me. Of course, you can continuously get better, right? Every single time you get in there with a more skilled guy, you get better.
“I kind of look at fighting like Pokemon. Every time you battle, you level up and you grow with experience points. So hopefully, one day you evolve. With that said, I think he could become champion. I think he’s good enough to become champion.”
Sterling admitted he intended to go in and out-strike Evloev, but the lifelong wrestler in him took hold when it came down to it. Still, the bout was a wildly thrilling three-round war of attrition that in hindsight would have benefited from two additional rounds. For Evloev’s sake, that would have been a valuable experience as he’s yet to enter the fourth or fifth rounds in the UFC.
A five-round rematch interests Sterling for his next time out, especially considering the close nature of the bout. He’s not holding his breath over that happening, though.
Instead, Sterling likes the idea of a trip to UFC’s London return in March.
Another featherweight contender and past Evloev opponent, Arnold Allen, piques Sterling’s interest. Unfortunately for Sterling, Allen informed Sterling that’s he’s looking at a potential dance with Yair Rodriguez. Therefore, Sterling has a backup choice: two-time title challenger Brian Ortega.
Regardless of who he fights, Sterling likes the timeframe of March more than anything.
“I think London would give me 12 weeks or something like that, or 10. I think that’s ideal,” Sterling said. “This way I can help Merab [Dvalishvili] and have him finish up his camp for Umar [Nurmagomedov for UFC 311]. I can help out Nazim [Sadykhov] for his fight in February with [Ismael] Bonfim, and then I could jumpstart my camp with the Umar camp and be ready for our March turnaround.
“[Ortega has] fought the who’s who of the division at this point, so I just think it would be a great fight with two older guys. I think I’m a bit older, but two guys that had fought for the belt. He’s got a good name value.”
