Aljamain Sterling was nervous heading into UFC 300.
The former UFC bantamweight champion had already established himself as an all-time great at 135 pounds with his record-setting title run, but Saturday’s event offered a daunting new challenge. Not only was he still reeling from his first loss since 2017, Sterling’s date with Calvin Kattar also marked the beginning of a new chapter up a weight class at 145 pounds.
“Fight day in the back room was when I really started to second guess a lot of everything,” Sterling revealed Monday on The MMA Hour. “I was just having doubts of, like, ‘Man, if this doesn’t go well, I don’t know where I go from here. Do I continue to keep fighting? Or do I just call it quits?’ [That] kind of thing. And those were real thoughts I had. Because I’m like, at the end of the day, I’m not just trying to just collect a check. There’s so many guys who stick around just to do that. I respect them, but I’m here to be number one, man. If it’s just like, I’m just going to be in the pack? I made enough money, I think I’ve done enough with my career where I’m like, ‘Alright, it’s probably time to find a new job.’ That’s kind of the way I look at things. If you’re not first, you’re kind of last.”
Sterling, 34, suffered a knockout loss to Sean O’Malley this past August, ending a run that saw him win nine consecutive UFC bouts from 2018-23 and reign over the bantamweight division as champion for three title defenses. That loss, combined with wanting to clear a path to title contention for his longtime friend and teammate Merab Dvalishvili, prompted Sterling to finally make the move up to 145 pounds. But “Funk Master” admitted Monday that a lot more was on line for his featherweight experiment than anyone truly realized.
According to Sterling, retirement was a very real possibility on his mind.
“It depends on how it would’ve happened,” Sterling said. “I think if I had got my ass completely kicked by Calvin Kattar, I was probably done."
Aljamain Sterling considered retirement if he lost at UFC 300: ‘I was probably done’ - MMA Fighting
