Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling expected to have tickets to the UFC 296: “Edwards vs. Covington” pay-per-view (PPV) event last weekend in Las Vegas, but when Sterling arrived at T-Mobile Arena, the doors were locked and “Funk Master” was sent packing.
The good news is, Sterling still had his shirt and shoes.
So what happened?
“Well they were tickets that … he was with a sponsor,” UFC CEO Dana White said at the UFC 296 post-fight press conference (watch it here). “I don’t know how they got pulled or what happened, but the team reached right out to him and he was like, ‘Yeah, never mind, I’m good, I’m gonna leave.’”
Maybe he left because “the team” offered him these seats.
Sterling caught word of the “official” explanation but presents a much different version of the story. “Funk Master” — no stranger to public battles with White — insists he followed proper procedure and asked for UFC 296 tickets through the usual channels.
“I’m not trying to fan the flames, I just think somewhere there was a little bit of a disconnect,” Sterling said on YouTube (transcribed by MMA News). “The only thing I didn’t understand was someone sent me a clip of I guess Dana saying that the tickets were through a sponsor. I don’t know what that was about because I’ve never had tickets from a sponsor for any of the UFC fights, I always go through the same exact channels every single time. This is the first time that that’s actually happened so … that was weird. I don’t know if that was like what someone told him, but no, I actually asked for tickets through the UFC channels.”
Sterling ended up at a nearby bar to watch the fights.
The 34 year-old ex-champion has not competed since his second-round knockout loss to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 last August in Boston. There was talk of a potential showdown against former featherweight champion Max Holloway at some point in 2024; however, that bout has yet to materialize.