Former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling fires back at claims he’s a ‘weight bully’ despite being 35lbs over the limit for his UFC title loss to O’Malley.
Aside from being one of the most prolific and dangerous grapplers in the UFC, Aljamain Sterling has also gained a reputation in recent months for offering fascinating personal insights into the life of an MMA athlete, including one of the most controversial aspects of the sport, weight cutting.
Aljamain Sterling makes good on his featherweight debut at UFC 300
Former bantamweight world champion Aljamain Sterling made good on his big move to featherweight at UFC 300 as he earned a unanimous decision victory over veteran contender Calvin Kattar.
In the aftermath of the rather one-sided bout, Sterling took the opportunity to call out Brian Ortega, stating that should he defeat ‘T-City’ on the big stage, it would make him “undeniable” for a shot at Ilia Topuria’s featherweight belt.
Now, a week removed from UFC 300, ‘Funk Master’ has fired back at fans claiming that he was a ‘weight bully’ in his old division – even after revealing he put on an enormous 35lbs in the hours after hitting the scales.
Sterling fires back at ‘weight bully’ claims and explains body changes
Speaking via his official YouTube channel, Sterling revealed that when he stepped onto the scales at the UFC Performance Institute in the hours before the Sean O’Malley fight, he weighed 171lbs.
“This is in comparison to the weight class of 135lbs, [that] was 126.7% – so 26.7% over the weight class limit, which is crazy,” said the former champion.
“Can you guys comprehend the mental discipline that you have to have to get down to 135lbs when physically, I shouldn’t even be able to get to that weight class?”
Sterling shared that he’d already been considering a move up to featherweight for several years, even before fans started to call him out for being a ‘weight bully’:
“People are going to say, ‘Well why are you being a weight bully?’ [Because] I was done with the weight class, I knew years ago back in 2019 was when I first noticed a significant weight gain after making 135lbs, I shot up into the high 170s and I was like ‘Oh that’s not normal’ and each fight after that, I gradually got bigger.”
Yet ‘Funk Master’ believes he deserves more credit for his discipline in cutting such a large amount of weight for such an extensive period of his career, before dismissing any notion that he retained an advantage on fight night:
“People think you’re being a weight bully [but] I’m not a big guy, I might be really strong, but I lose all those advantages when I cut my body so severely down to that weight class – I hope people put that in perspective.”
“There is no real weight bully thing, like yeah you might be bigger in terms of your height and frame, but I wasn’t really that guy.”
‘Funk Master’ believes he has the skills to beat Alexander Volkanovski
Had Sterling beaten Sean O’Malley in 2023, he would have likely still moved up to featherweight to take on Alexander Volkanovski for a shot at becoming a double champion. In fact, that was not only the plan for Sterling and his team, but also the UFC:
“For sure I would have liked to have gone out with a win, get proper time to train and do one more title fight at 135, and be done with it – that’s why I asked Dana [White] for the 145 shot at Volkanovski and he said that if I had beaten O’Malley, he would have given me a shot.”
Not only does Sterling believe that he could have given Volkanovski a run for his money, but that he still has the skills to test ‘The Great’ at 145lbs:
“I really do think that back then, that version of myself, obviously the one that fought Sean wasn’t the best version of me, but I think I was skilled enough and I still am skilled enough to compete with a guy like Volkanovski.”
“Just based on the size, I think I had the size and strength to compete with him,” said Sterling, before reiterating that he is now in ‘phase two’ of his progression as an all-round MMA athlete:
“I think I have the skillset to compete with him and now people are going to start to see the difference where I’m not depleting my body and losing all that energy and stuff that gives me my physical gifts while I’m in the training room, that I’m losing on fight night.”
With his victory at UFC 300, Sterling entered the featherweight rankings in the #8 spot.