Aljamain Sterling has been consistent in his belief that he should already be fighting for the bantamweight championship tonight, but he has been downright adamant that the winner of himself and Pedro Munhoz in tonight’s UFC 238 bout should be next in line. And with the bantamweight landscape structured as it currently is, if the UFC goes in another direction and gives the next title shot to someone else, that would be next to impossible for Sterling to wrap his head around:
“If Pedro or I, the winner of this doesn’t get the next title shot then pigs can fly,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “I’m convinced that the ranking system should just go away. Like get the f—k out of here with that s—t. If you’re going to do that to us then there should be no ranking system. Just get rid of it. Stop lying to the fighters, stop lying to the fans and just do whatever the hell you’re going to do and stop pretending.
“Let’s stop pretending that these things mean something. It’s about what have you done for me lately and who’s going to sell the most tickets and who the most popular person is that they want to push.”
One such person that Sterling believes the UFC is standing behind is Petr Yan, who will be competing on the main card of the pay per view while Aljamain Sterling competes in what many believes to be a #1 contender fight and yet is not even the featured prelim:
“Right now, honestly I’m not going to lie, it really, really feels like they want to push Petr Yan,” Sterling said. “He’s a very talented dude, he put on a ton of great performances and I get it, I understand the business and what I’ve got to do to stay at the forefront but I think No. 3 versus No. 4, I can’t see how a win from Petr Yan over Jimmie Rivera, who’s coming off a loss to [me] and if I beat Pedro, I can’t see he leap frogs any of us to get the next title shot.”
Do you believe there is a realistic chance that someone such as Petr Yan “leap frogs” the Sterling/Munhoz winner for a title shot? Or would that be like “pigs flying?”
