Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling has always had a somewhat rocky relationship with certain parts of the MMA fanbase.
“Funkmaster” has an awkward striking style and a strong grappling game which means that his fights aren’t always the most exciting to watch, even if he’s incredibly effective at what he does.
Aside from this, another point that saw some of the UFC’s audience take a dislike to Sterling was what happened at UFC 259, where he challenged Petr Yan for the 135-pound title.
Yan landed an illegal knee to Sterling’s head whilst he was a downed opponent in the fourth round which the challenger couldn’t recover from.
As a result, Yan was disqualified, meaning that the title changed hands in disappointing fashion.
Eric Nicksick Recalls How Aljamain Sterling Had No Memory Of UFC 259 On His Journey Home
Despite the knee strike being a clear and obvious foul on Yan’s side, some fans didn’t like the way Sterling won the title as a result, and questioned whether he actually couldn’t continue or if he was looking for a way out because the fight wasn’t going his way.
This was cleared up during a recent episode of the Verse Us podcast where Sterling joined Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick, who was in his corner on that night.
Nicksick provided more details about how that decision was made to not continue and what the aftermath of that knee landing was like.
He recalled how, after nominating himself to stay with Sterling and take him back home from the hospital, it was clear that he had no memory of what had just happened.
“I said to Ray [Longo], I’ll go to the hospital with him and I had to sit in the f****** parking lot. You didn’t get to sit in the waiting room, this is COVID era so I get a text from him or whoever was kind of there, one of the nurses or UFC personnel, ‘Hey, he’s ready, you can come around the back, you can pick him up.’
“We get in the car and what, 30-minute ride home and this is why I know, from a personal level, that this dude wasn’t faking. 30-minutes of him asking round after round after round. I say this because guys that I know that have been knocked out or have had head trauma have asked the same questions. ‘What happened in round one? What happened in round two?’ Going through everything in their head.”
Sterling returns at UFC 307 where he faces Movsar Evloev in search of his second consecutive win at featherweight.
