Aljamain Sterling nearly retired before his rematch with Petr Yan at UFC 273.
Sterling was recently a guest on “The Schmozone Podcast” to talk about his successful UFC bantamweight title defense. During the interview, Sterling revealed that the tumultuous battle back to full health ahead of the bout nearly made him decide to just retire.
“Maybe in June I’ll actually start really training,” Sterling said. “All the rehab, PT stuff, two, three training camps — start, stop, start stop — takes a toll on you, man.
“I felt like I was training, training, and training with no end goal in sight. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for me. That’s what it started to feel like.
“And I honestly started thinking I might end up retiring. But I’m glad I was able to make the walk again, and that’s why I was pretty emotional getting on the scale because I honestly thought this would never happen again.
“And I thought that was it. I’m just glad I was able to make that walk, and I give training a little bit of a break for now.”
Of course, Sterling didn’t end up retiring. Instead, he made weight for his and Yan’s UFC 273 title clash and put on a spectacular performance. Sterling’s ground game played a huge role in his split-decision win over Yan.
It marked the first defense of Sterling’s championship career. Now, he’ll rest up before resuming training again this summer.
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