Aljamain Sterling is confused by his relegation to the prelims.
After scoring a unanimous decision victory over Calvin Kattar in his featherweight debut at UFC 300, the ‘Funk Master’ returns to the Octagon this Saturday night at UFC 310 in Las Vegas. Sterling is set to square off with Movsar Evloev in a bout that was originally scheduled to go down in October until Sterling suffered an injury.
Over the last several years, Sterling has been a mainstay on main cards and in main events. However, his role at the final pay-per-view of the year will see him take a spot on the prelims — a position he’s not exactly thrilled with.
“I didn’t know if I should have been insulted by the placement on the fight card or glass half-full,” Sterling said in a video on his YouTube channel. “I guess that’s the best way I try to look at everything in life. I get to fight earlier and get to be done earlier. I was a little confused by it, of course. I guess they have their rhyme or reason for what they do, the UFC brass, and it is what it is.
“At the end of the day, it’s not my organization. I don’t call the shots. I just go out there and compete, and it’s up to me to go out there and prove these guys wrong that I am a main card fighter. I think people are gonna be in for a very big surprise, and the UFC is gonna realize we messed up big time by not putting this on the main card” (h/t MMA Mania).
Does Aljamain Sterling have a point?
To be fair, Sterling has not competed on the prelims since his win over Pedro Munhoz at UFC 238 more than five years ago. The lone exception during that timeframe was his scrap with Kattar at UFC 300 — an event so stacked that two former UFC champions were the curtain-jerkers.
Why Dana White and Co. opted to keep Sterling off the main card is anyone’s guess, but if we’re being honest, his three-round scrap with Kattar didn’t exactly set the world on fire, nor did Evloev’s last outing against Arnold Allen in January.
