Aljamain Sterling has some thoughts for his haters and for his former opponent TJ Dillashaw.
UFC 280 saw bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling defend his title for the second time. He defeated former champ TJ Dillashaw by second-round TKO after Dillashaw suffered a shoulder dislocation in the fight. Following the win, Sterling was hit with criticism from the fans. Many are trying to discredit his win due to the fact that Dillashaw was compromised coming into the bout. Sterling has met these haters head-on.
Sterling believes that the fans who are throwing the most shade his way are ones that have not seen his entire body of work. He thinks people are making judgments about him after only watching his three most recent fights. To this, he would urge them to go back and watch some tape.
“Most of these fans that seen me fight they seen the first Yan fight and they did not see any of the other fights previously before that. They didn’t see how I ran through Sandhagen, other than just the highlight of that. They didn’t see the war with Pedro Munhoz they didn’t see how I shut down Jimmy Rivera. They didn’t see what I did to Cody Stamann and made a strong bulldog of a wrestler look like he’s never wrestled a day in his life,” he said on Michael Bisping’s podcast. “So the people they’re not understanding so they can’t compute how I win.”
Aljamain Sterling blasts TJ Dillashaw for the handling of his UFC 280 loss
Following his loss at UFC 280, Dillashaw came out and revealed that he had been dealing with his injury for a long time. He explained his train of thought in continuing with the fight instead of backing out. In a recent interview, he mentioned that he thought a fight with Sterling would be the easiest in the division and was certain he could beat him with one bad shoulder. To this Sterling has responded.
“I just think he’s a sore loser, man. He’s arrogant, delusional, and, I guess that’s what makes him a former champion because he has to have this crazy mindset and belief in himself to actually do what he’s accomplished. I think he probably even thought the same thing about Renan Barão and just thought he was just gonna run through him,” he said. “And Dominick Cruz shut him down even though that was a close fight. So what I’m getting at is, TJ is good, I can acknowledge that but I just felt like no matter how healthy he was that day, he was not beating me.”
Sterling has requested some time off before returning to the Octagon. He is looking to return in the summer and could be facing a number of potential contenders. Sean O’Malley, Henry Cejudo, and Marlon Vera have all been in the conversation.