Aljamain Sterling’s bantamweight title is bittersweet at best. Awarded via DQ in a fight that Sterling was nowhere near winning, it has been the subject of repeated controversy ever since. He told The MMA Hour that he’s sick of apologizing for the accolade, feeling that he’s been unfairly criticized.
“If this is what people are going to give me sh*t for, I might as well have fun with it instead of trying to ‘no, I’m sorry guys it wasn’t….’. Screw you guys, go f*ck yourself. That’s how I felt.”
Bantamweight Champ Aljamain Sterling Sick of Apologizing
When Aljamain Sterling took on Petrn Yan to challenge for the bantamweight title, he may have expected to win. He certainly didn’t expect to win through Yan’s disqualification for throwing illegal knees to Sterling’s head. Sterling was unable to continue the fight, and the referee awarded him the win, and therefore the title. Supposedly, Sterling became the subject of an online abuse campaign over a photo of him “parading” his new hardware.
“To see the picture and think I was parading around with the belt, which is not what I was doing. I only started doing that when people started giving me sh*t for my friends and family telling me to take a picture them and because they posted it, I never posted it, I became the bad guy.
At that point, I was like so I’m going to keep explaining myself for people to keep ignoring what I’m saying. So I was like you know what? I’m going to take pictures with the belt, here you go. I am the champ cause guess what? I am the champ!
If you have a competition and you abide by the rules, the playoffs, NFL, overtime, and you commit a foul and an illegal move, you get penalized. If people say you shouldn’t be able to win the belt, you shouldn’t be able to win a fight because a fight is still a fight whether it’s a championship setting or it’s not.”
The way he sees it, the best solution is a rematch, sooner rather than later. “Let’s just have the rematch and we can shut everybody up. I know the Russian fans really love their guy, which is Aljamain ‘The Funkmaster’ Sterling.
I want to make sure the Russian fans have someone to cheer for which is going to be Aljamain ‘The Funkmaster’ Sterling on Oct. 30.
I’m going to make sure all the Russian fans love me.” Which way do you see the Sterling vs Yan rematch going? Let us know in the comments.
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