Chael Sonnen believes the hate that Aljamain Sterling receives is nothing, but pure jealousy from a bunch of jerks parading around as MMA fans.
‘Funk Master’ is fresh off his third-straight title defense at UFC 288. After besting former champions Petr Yan and T.J. Dillashaw in his previous two appearances, Sterling dispatched the most decorated bantamweight in the history of the sport, Henry Cejudo. Scoring a split-decision victory over the former two-division titleholder, Sterling was ready to take some time off to rest and recover before an inevitable clash with fan-favorite Sean O’Malley.
However, Dana White had other plans, announcing that Sterling would return in August to defend his title against O’Malley, leaving the reigning champ very little time to recover before heading back into camp. Since the announcement, Sterling has engaged in a war of words with White while continuously fielding a series of hate-filled comments on social media from fans that simply can’t get over his controversial title win more than two years ago.
“I have never seen a more disrespected world champion and this isn’t new,” Sonnen said in the latest episode of Beyond the Fight on YouTube. “You guys got your nuts in a ringer over Aljo the night he won the world championship by disqualification. And it wasn’t just you the viewer. The pundits did it to him as well. And it wasn’t just the pundits. There were officials and members of the commission that had a huge problem with the referee letting a world title change hands over disqualification.
“I never understood that. We only have a couple of rules in this sport. Don’t poke his eyes. Don’t bite the son of a b*tch and don’t kick him when he’s down. We only have a few rules. One was violated. Egregiously violated. The referee now has to remedy that and the remedy, which is extremely clear in the state of Nevada where the contest took place, is if the athlete who was fouled cannot continue, he wins because this guy got disqualified.
“This is where Aljo’s problems begin. Everybody liked him. He’s the handsome guy. He’s just cute enough. You actually wouldn’t mind if your sister dated the guy. He looks like he could really be trusted. He’s successful. He’s a hard worker. You hear all these wonderful things. He’s close with his mom. Then all of a sudden, because they handed him a belt that was the byproduct of a rule being followed because one of the very few rules in our sport was not followed and you turned on him and he’s never been quite able to straighten that out.”
Fans were quick to discredit Aljamain Sterling’s disqualification victory and immediately called for a rematch with Petr Yan. Little more than a year later, fans got exactly that, and much to their chagrin, ‘Funk Master’ once again walked away the winner, this time via a closely-contested split decision. Unfortunately, the close nature of the match did little to quell fans’ skepticism over Sterling’s championship reign.
“Turns out Aljo is the best fighter in the history of our sport, on the ground from the back,” Sonnen continued. “We didn’t know that. He surpassed Demian Maia. Aljo was able to find that position for roughly 15 minutes of the contest and leaves as champion of the world. Now everybody’s mad. And they’re upset. They’re so upset that there’s one way that we can fix this for sure. We thought that Yan could do it, but now we can do it for sure.
“We can bring in the greatest and most decorated combat sports athlete in the history of time. We’re gonna have to find him in Arizona. We’re gonna have to get him through training camp. We’re gonna motivate him to get down to weight, but if we do that, we talk to him just right and we get [Henry] Cejudo back, we get rid of Aljo. The world can then be fixed.”
Aljamain Sterling Continues to Defy His Skeptics
Once again, Aljamain Sterling refused to follow the script. ‘Funk Master’ dispatched the Olympic gold medalist, albeit in another razor-close split decision.
“Instead of appreciating in. We’ve decided to be angry and we decided to be mean to him. And we’ve decided to hurt the world champion’s feelings.”
Aljamain Sterling has yet again come under fire after suggesting that he will not be ready to compete on August 19 when the promotion returns to Boston for UFC 292. Sterling is slated to defend his title once again as he faces No. 2 ranked contender Sean O’Malley. Recently, ‘Funk Master’ has taken aim at Dana White for thrusting him into a world title defense with little time to recover. Some have perceived those complaints as Sterling planting an eventual reason to pull out of the fight.
“You people that set out to be jerks, and there’s a lot of you, have succeeded. You set out to try to agitate a guy that seems to be perfect. Seems everything was going wonderfully and you got jealous and you wanted to hurt his feelings. And you succeeded.
“You want to not like him. He would like it if you did like him. I think you should consider that. I think that’s actually really nice. That’s actually very sweet and humble.”
