Former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling’s fight against Movsar Evloev is buried on the preliminaries in the last pay-per-view of 2024.
Sterling is no stranger to being slept on during his professional career. The former bantamweight king defended his title three times after winning the belt via a highly controversial disqualification win against Petr Yan. Ahead of his last successful defense against Henry Cejudo, Sterling was dealing with a nagging injury and almost pulled out of the bout a few times but powered through and got his hand raised.
After the split decision win against Cejudo in May 2023, Sterling was hopeful that he would be afforded some champion’s privilege and the UFC would allow him an extended layoff to recover his knee before he fought again, but that was not the case. He would go on to get knocked out by Sean O’Malley in August of the same year, ending his title run.
Fast forward almost 18 months and the Funkmaster, who was always considered big for 135 pounds, has moved up to featherweight to start a run to become just the 10th athlete in UFC history to win a title in two different divisions. With a win against Evoleov on Saturday night at UFC 310 in Las Vegas, he would instantly enter the top-five rankings and be in the title shot discussion.
The featherweight spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Doug Vazquez at the UFC Apex before stepping into the Octagon on Saturday. They spoke on a range of topics that included his feelings about his fight not being on the main card, a luxury almost always afforded to former champs. “I’m trying to look at it as glass half full. I get to fight earlier, I get to hang out with my friends and family earlier, we get to party earlier…I get paid the same and more people will be able to get to tune in for free.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Aljamain ‘Funkmaster’ Sterling Unfazed by UFC 310 Main Card Snub .
