Aljamain Sterling is almost where he always wanted to be. More importantly, the UFC bantamweight champion is exactly where he needs to be.
“I thought I was gonna be in the NBA when I was a kid. That clearly didn’t work out,” the 33-year-old laughs. “I wasn’t blessed with the height. Thank you, Lord from above. My dad’s actually 6ft tall, his brothers are all tall, I’m 5ft7in. The NBA was the goal I wanted when I was in elementary school; as a youth. I always wanted to be a professional athlete. That was the only thing I saw for myself.”
A professional basketballer Sterling is not, but he has reached significant heights nonetheless as one of the finest professional fighters in the world, now reigning atop the UFC’s 135lbs division. And while there are no basketball nets in his workplace, he sees their lattice-like lacing every day, defining the structure of the cages in which he competes.
On Saturday, one of those very cages will be crafted in Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena, where Sterling (21-3) defends his title in the co-main event of UFC 280 – perhaps the most-anticipated mixed martial arts event of the year. His opponent will be one of his predecessors: TJ Dillashaw, a two-time UFC bantamweight champion whose second reign ended amid a two-year drugs ban.
Dillashaw (17-4) relinquished the gold in January 2019, just before news broke that the American had tested positive for the banned substance Erythropoietin – an injectable, performance-enhancing drug. Two of Dillashaw’s prime years were wasted as he sat on the sidelines, ageing as MMA continued its own growth, before the 36-year-old returned last July with a controversial decision win against Cory Sandhagen – a fight in which Dillashaw sustained a knee injury that has kept him out of the Octagon until now.
“It will be nice to punch a guy like that in the face,” Sterling tells The Independent, “because I really still believe I can beat him even if he’s juiced to the gills.
“I just like making fun of him, because I think he’s mentally weak if he needs to do that. It’s a guy who’s clean and got here the right way versus a guy who had to cut corners, and I still think he’s cutting corners, but that’s not gonna change the fact that we’re gonna get locked in a cage and punch each other in the face. I just think I’m gonna do a better job of that.
“There was no real reserve [in accepting the fight],” Sterling adds, after I mention the recent cancellation of Conor Benn vs Chris Eubank Jr – one of British boxing’s biggest bouts having been postponed after Benn tested positive for a banned substance.
“Hopefully TJ doesn’t ruin the show before we get to step in the cage. If he’s still cheating, he’s cheating; I really don’t give a s***. I just like to poke fun at him and let him know how pointless it is for him to do that, because it’s still not enough to make him my equal.”
While Dillashaw’s career will now forever be marred by controversy, Sterling has also been the target of fierce criticism from fans – though for much less justifiable reasons. “Funk Master” became bantamweight champion when Petr Yan was disqualified in their title fight last March, the Russian landing an illegal knee on his downed opponent. Some fans accused Sterling of exaggerating the effects of the blow, which saw the fight waved off and the belt wrapped around the 33-year-old’s waist.
“I just think people don’t think I should be the champ. Guess what? I’m the champ!” Sterling grins. “You’re gonna have to deal with it! That’s as black and white as it gets.”
Sterling’s critics wished to see Yan assert ascendency over the Jamaican-American in a rematch, and while Sterling recovered from neck surgery last year, the Russian claimed the interim title. That set up this April’s highly-anticipated second meeting with Sterling, who outgrappled Yan to edge a narrow points victory. It wasn’t enough to silence all of Sterling’s doubters, but it was enough for the champion himself.
“Thank God, I came out on the right side of that decision,” he tells The Independent. “I thought I was comfortably up. In a sense I coasted, so that I took less damage. I could have made it more of a ‘fight’, and people can say whatever they want about mentality; that’s very fair, but why take a risk that I don’t need to take and put myself in harm’s way? He pretty much has a gun, and I’d just be giving him more bullets to keep taking shots at me.”
Sterling, however, did not feel he needed that result to legitimise his status as champion.
“I feel like I’ve been the champ since I beat Sandhagen back in 2020,” he says, recalling his emphatic, early submission of the American. “Everything I’ve gotten in life, I have earned with super hard work, man. If people can’t relate to that or respect that, they must be trust-fund babies or something. So, it sucks to suck. At the end of the day, you reap what you sow, you play the hands that you’re dealt.”
That is something Sterling has put into practice ever since he was young, when he dreamed of basketball courts rather than cages.
“Not everyone is blessed with the same tools in life,” he says. “I found myself having difficulty in school, just the way they taught us wasn’t ideal for my style of learning, which is more hands-on. I honestly thought I had dyslexia at one point. I can read, it just takes a long time for it to register. I’ll have to read the same thing like four times, because I’ll forget what the hell I just read! So, imagine testing like that.
“But you see I excel in other areas of my life – in terms of common sense, combat sports, just being able to analyse and break things down. You’ve got to take what the Lord gives you, and that’s what I’ve been able to do. It’s all good, man. I’m proud, I think the kid growing up – a younger version of myself – if he saw what he’s going to become, he would be shocked and super excited for the future.”
That future is now, and it is exactly where Sterling needs to be.
