There was a lot more riding on Aljamain Sterling’s Featherweight debut than initially met the eye on Saturday night.
In his fight bout at 145lbs, the former Bantamweight champion faced Calvin Kattar in what turned out to be a shut out performance for ‘Funk Master’, earning a unanimous decision with all three judges giving him every round.
The fight marked Sterling’s first return to the cage since losing the Bantamweight strap to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 and when speaking to Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour, Sterling admitted than his mindset was good all the way through camp. However things changed when he entered the arena on fight day, with doubts and thoughts of possible retirement creeping into his mind. He said:
“I was pretty good until I got to the back room fight day in the back room is when I really started to second guess a lot of everything, I was just like having doubt of like ‘Man, if this doesn't go well, I don't know where I go from here. Do I continue to keep fighting or do I just call it quits kind of a thing’
“And those are real thoughts I had because I was like, at the end of day, I'm not just trying to just collect the cheque. There's so many guys that stick around just to do that. I respect them, but I'm here to be number one. I'm not here to just be second fiddle unless it is to like a really good teammate or something and I knew that my shot was coming, as that’s a completely different argument. This is a completely different case.
“But if it's just like I'm just going to be in the pack, I made enough money. I think I've done enough with my career. I'm like, All right, it's probably time to find a new job. That's kind of the way I look at things.
"You know, you're not first. You're kind of last.”
Although it was domination from beginning to end for Sterling, some fans inside the arena voiced their frustrations with the grapple heavy, 15 minute affair. Post fight, it was clear that the 34-year-old was unhappy with his performance and that initially, even though he had secured the win, he was left with several burning questions.
“I just thought it wasn't enough. I felt like shit. I didn't feel like shit. I was like. I felt like that might have looked like shit. And I'm in my head. I'm like, I didn't know if I was tweaking or not as I might my tweaking or that was a really crappy performance and then I'm just thinking and I started tearing up a little bit in the back.
“So I'm just like, man, if I how am I supposed to beat a guy like Ilia, a guy like Volk, if I'm going to perform like that, you know? You know, I'm talking about fighting for a belt. I know I need to be able to do a little bit more than that because that's not that that mean maybe that wins.
“Maybe it's enough to hang in there. But is that enough to beat those guys? I don't know. I really was questioning that because, again, I'm not looking at just being in the middle of the pack. I want to know that I have a clear a clear path. And I want to know doing that path you might have some opposition, but it's winnable.
“You know, that's something to look forward to versus like you didn't, you know, you have no shot. And if you have no shot, you're just like, well, what the heck am I doing?”
Since watching it back, Sterling is now much happier with the performance and was thankful to UFC CEO Dana White for also giving him props when he spoke to the media on Saturday night. The win will now see Sterling move into the top 10 of the Featherweight rankings with several extremely exciting matchups available for him.
You can watch his whole interview with Ariel Helwani, below:
