Aljamain Sterling returned to the win column at UFC Shanghai, but he did not get completely unscathed from the fight.
On Saturday, the Premier Promotion returned to China for UFC Shanghai for the first time since 2019, and in the main event Johnny Walker broke the Chinese prospect Mingyang Zhang.
In the Co-Main event, the former UFC-Bantam weight champion Aljamain Sterling took on Brian Ortega in a catch weight, after Ortega had missed the weight on Friday.
'Funkmaster' Sterling then raised the unanimous decision gain in what was an extremely passive fight of both hunters, who again criticized the fans.
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Aljamain Sterling shows off against Brian Ortega with brutal injury suffered
Although he is best known for his struggling heavy approach, Sterling fought this fight on the feet, porrying at 't-City' with Jabs and then out of danger.
He kept this approach for the most part of the fights, which resulted in the presence of the crowd because they wanted a more active fight.
After his victory, Sterling called in courageously that he was a featherweight title fight against Alexander Volkanovski, who attracted a hilarious reaction from Lerone Murphy, who voted his name as the number one competitions on UFC 319.
Although it seemed as if the 36-year-old did not turn himself off too much to take injuries, just a few hours away from his victory over Ortega, Sterling has shown a brutal injury that he has contracted the fight.
During the fight, 'Funkmaster' landed a huge rotating elbow directly on the Kin of Ortega, who would probably have turned off another man. At the time it did not seem as if it caused the former champion damage, but he has now shown the aftermath.
“The last elbow that I landed in round four, I really couldn't even keep my arm up to defend myself,” said Sterling during the show after the fight.
“When he came after me, I thought, this is now a living nightmare. Because I can't even do anything other than a circle, and hopefully he makes a mistake, what he did and let me take his back and bring him down.
“This certainly happened in the fight. It turned out immediately in the fifth round,” Sterling continued.
What is the next step for Aljamain Sterling?
Although Sterling called the next featherweight title fight, it is unlikely that he has done enough to jump over Lerone Murphy and Movsar Evloev.
There have been earlier conversations about 'Funkmaster' who take on Arnold Allen and now seems to be the perfect timing for those two to finally collide in the cage.