Aljamain Sterling staked his claim as an elite bantamweight with his submission win over long time top 135 pound fighter Takeya Mizugaki over five months ago at UFC on Fox: Machida vs. Rockhold. The number six contender in the official UFC rankings has been game to take another fight for months, but matchmaker Sean Shelby hasn’t been able to find anyone who would sign to fight him. Specifically, Brian Caraway, ranked number seven, turned the fight down. He wants to fight on December 19th in Orlando, but nobody is willing to face him. That all led to this:
Intentionally bad Photoshop and memetic sans serif font aside, Sterling isn’t joking, which he explained to MMAFighting’s Marc Raimondi. He’s considering various options, including going back to school for a masters in health when the new semester starts in January and taking a teaching job at a local high school. “If they can’t guarantee me something sooner, barring that I don’t get injured, I’m gonna have to go back to school and just do what’s best for me,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “If that includes taking a layoff, then I guess I’ve gotta take a layoff and actually do something positive with it.”
Sterling expressed concern to Raimondi that his style, focused on wrestling and grappling. He pointed out how he came into the Mizugaki fight unranked, dominated a veteran ranked just outside the top five, submitted him with the first arm triangle from the bottom in a UFC fight since 1999…and didn’t get a performance bonus, official or otherwise. “To me, it was like a slap in the face. I feel like my style is not what they think people want to see, which is going out there just swinging for the fences and hoping to get a knockdown. I felt like I did a beautiful display of jiu-jitsu and showed how strategically to break down somebody from the feet, control them and make them look like they never fought before.”
He’s holding out some hope that Michael McDonald or Raphael Assuncao, both top contenders returning from long injury layoffs, might take a fight with him in December. If not, he’s not getting enough fights t make this a career.
