Former UFC Bantamweight Champion Aljamain Sterling got an impressive victory over Brian Ortega at UFC Shanghai.
It was a rather lopsided win and there wasn’t a moment where it felt as if Aljamain was in danger, but there was a strong possibility that it could've been. During the post-fight show, Sterling revealed that he actually injured his elbow and was concerned that Ortega could capitalize on it.
“That last elbow I landed in round four, I really couldn’t even keep my arm up to defend myself,” Sterling revealed during the UFC Shanghai post-fight show. “When he came after me, I was like this is like a living nightmare right now.
“Because I can’t even do anything other than circle, and hopefully he makes a mistake, which he did and allowed me to take his back and get him down.”
Sterling discussed going five rounds in the co-main event and he feels that Ortega could get the former UFC Champion in the later rounds, which is why he advocated for a lengthy fight.
“I knew there was only one reason he wanted it to be five rounds and that was to get me in the later rounds because I’ve shown in the past to fade a little bit. But I was also cutting a tremendous amount of weight getting down to [135 pounds]. I still slowed down a bit but I had some stuff coming into this and thankfully, god was on my side and I was able to get the job done despite all the circumstances coming into this fight.”
Where does Sterling go next?
Sterling won't be fighting for a while due to the elbow injury. He confirmed that he suffered a grade 2 tear in his tricep.
“So I got my MRI back, grade 2 tear in my tricep,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “But they said strain. So as he’s reading the report, he goes ‘grade 2 strain’ so I’m relaxing, I’m chilling like oh it’s nothing. It’s just a strain. I’ll be back no problem. It’s not like a tear or anything and he goes ‘a strain is a tear, what are you talking about?’
“I was like I thought it was two different things. I have a partial tear in my tricep tendon. The thing’s still a balloon.”
The UFC fighter called for a featherweight title shot after his dominant win, but Dana White hasn’t responded to the shot out. He’ll likely have to fight a title eliminator bout next since Sterling did come in with a loss, but perhaps Dana was so impressed with his performance that he’ll give a shot against Alexander Volkanovski. Though that might be a tough sell since White seemed more interested in Volkanovski fighting Lerone Murphy or Movsar Evloev. Of course, this is if Alexander is still champ once Sterling has healed.