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Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo got heated during their final face-off ahead of UFC 288 on Saturday. Sterling and Cejudo have spent months exchanging words to hype up their upcoming fight, but on Friday, the pair decided to up the ante and exchanged shoves.
During the UFC 288 ceremonial weigh-ins, the ‘Funk Master’ and ’Triple C’ came face-to-face and traded insults. The reigning UFC bantamweight champion was heard telling Cejudo that he was going to ‘beat the s—t out of’ him tomorrow, while the former two-division UFC champion responded with, ‘Show me!’ several times.
The face-off intensified when Cejudo said Sterling was ‘scared’ and expected to finish him inside three rounds. As the Serra-Longo Fight Team product dismissed Cejudo, he put his fingers in his face, and the Fight Ready representative slapped them away. Sterling responded with a shove, and UFC president Dana White and co. separated the fighters.
Watch the entire face-off here, courtesy of White:
Aljamain Sterling breaks down upcoming fight with Henry Cejudo
Sterling and Cejudo have had similar predictions on how they expect their fight to go, with the pair agreeing that it is not going five rounds. The ‘Funk Master’ recently gave his final breakdown on the fight and explained how he plans on breaking Cejudo.
“I think I finish this fight in the second round,” said Sterling on a newly released episode of The Weekly Scraps. “I’m still heavily set on that. I just don’t think Henry’s that much of a softie that I can get him out of there in Round One, but he’s going to be very resilient, give some pushback. I think he’s gonna make some adjustments that I’m gonna need to adjust to as well.
“After he makes a few reads and I make a few reads on his reads, I think eventually I get the takedown,” continued Sterling. “I take him down, wear on him a bit, and I think that’s gonna be the difference where I can drown him with weight and pressure and I think I can get the TKO in the second round.”
With a win against Cejudo, Sterling would become the first UFC bantamweight champion to defend his title three consecutive times.
When is UFC 288?
UFC 288 goes down on Sat., May 6, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Stay tuned to Bloody Elbow for live results, highlights and discussion on the upcoming pay-per-view event.
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