Aljamain Sterling caused quite the stir in the MMA world Monday, and he’s well aware of it.
Sterling, a former UFC bantamweight champion, was critical of Tom Aspinall and his handling of the illegal eye poke he received from Ciryl Gane in their heavyweight championship bout this past Saturday in the main event of UFC 321.
Aspinall was poked in both eyes within the same motion, and said he couldn’t see. The fight was paused, and the Englishman took the five minutes allocated to recover from a foul, but still couldn’t see and was unable to continue fighting – thus ruling the bout a no contest.
Sterling questioned the severity of Aspinall’s eye poke and criticized the way Aspinall handled the situation by telling referee Jason Herzog he couldn’t see before the five-minute recovery window was up. These comments caused major backlash, and fans were quick to point out Sterling’s disqualification win over Petr Yan after getting illegally kneed in the head – something many fans at the time pointed out as acting.
“I made some comments on the Aspinall fight and how he handled the situation of the foul, and I think my opinion still stands,” Sterling said in a video statement. “Yeah, you can say because I’ve been fouled and you guys think that I faked an injury, but I did not. We’ve clarified this multiple times. Bad rehydration, felt like sh*t, I got blasted in the head, and I barely knew where I was at the time. Yes, it looked like I acted of whatever. I can understand that. But I have nothing to say to that. The fact still remains: When Tommy got poked in the eye, the first thing he said is, ‘I cannot see.’ We all know when you are fouled, you cannot say those words otherwise the referee is inclined to stop the fight. That’s just the way the rules are made. Don’t be mad at me.”
Although Sterling said his stance remains the same as the one on the original video, “the Funkmaster” did seem to have a change in tune to be more empathetic with Aspinall – who at the end of the day was the one illegally fouled.
“I don’t know how badly hurt he was,” Sterling said. “I never questioned Tommy’s integrity. I never questioned any fighter’s integrity, but I do like to make fun of certain situations because i’ve gotten a very unfair amount of flack from a lot of fans. When I was illegally kneed in the head, and somehow I was being a b*tch, a p*ssy and all these things under the sun when none of you guys have ever been blasted with a knee that you didn’t see coming from anyone. You can say I milked it, you can say all these things, but the fact still remains: It hurt like a b*tch.”
