Aljamain Sterling returned to the win column at UFC Shanghai, but he didn’t come out of the fight completely unscathed.
On Saturday, the premier promotion returned to China for the first time since 2019 for UFC Shanghai, and in the main event, Johnny Walker demolished Chinese prospect Mingyang Zhang.
In the co-main event, former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling took on Brian Ortega in a catchweight bout, after Ortega missed weight on Friday.
‘Funkmaster’ Sterling went on to pick up the unanimous decision win in what was an extremely passive fight from both fighters, which once again came under criticism from the fans.
Aljamain Sterling shows off brutal injury suffered against Brian Ortega
Despite being mostly known for his wrestling heavy approach, Sterling fought this fight on the feet, prodding at ‘T-City’ with jabs and then moving out of danger.
He adopted this approach for the majority of the fight, which resulted in the crowd in attendance booing because they wanted a more action packed fight.
Following his win, Sterling audaciously called for a featherweight title fight against Alexander Volkanovski, which drew a hilarious reaction from Lerone Murphy, who stamped his name as the number one contender at UFC 319.
Although it seemed as though the 36-year-old didn’t over-exert himself to pick up any injuries, just a few hours removed from his win over Ortega, Sterling has shown off a brutal injury he suffered from the fight.
During the fight, ‘Funkmaster’ landed a huge spinning elbow directly on the chin of Ortega, which would likely have put any other man out. At the time, it didn’t seem as though it did any damage to the former champion, but he has now shown off the aftermath.
“That last elbow I landed in round four, I really couldn’t even keep my arm up to defend myself,” Sterling said during the post-fight show.
“When he came after me, I was like, this is a living nightmare right now. Because I can’t even do anything other than circle, and hopefully he makes a mistake, which he did and allowed me to take his back and get him down.
“This for sure happened in the fight. It showed right away in the fifth round,” Sterling continued.
What’s next for Aljamain Sterling?
Although Sterling called for the featherweight title fight next, it is unlikely that he did enough to leapfrog over Lerone Murphy and Movsar Evloev.
There have previously been talks of ‘Funkmaster’ taking on Arnold Allen and now seems like the perfect timing for those two to finally clash in the cage.