Aljamain Sterling has no plans to chase Petr Yan back down to bantamweight. He wants Yan to come to him.
“I will never go back down. Yan AND O’Malley would have to come up 145. No more fading late because I’m losing muscle to make the weight limit,” he wrote on X late Monday night.
The post was a reply to a fan account asking what Yan could do if Sterling decided to cut back to 135 and take his belt back. Sterling’s answer is that he won’t make that cut, and anyone who wants him can meet him at featherweight.
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It wasn’t his only exchange with Yan supporters that night. About 13 minutes earlier, a fan claimed Sterling only won a belt because Yan smashed his face in, and argued that the judges robbed Yan at the weekend. Sterling replied, “Lol ahh funny, the record says…. Nevermind.” (The record does say something. Sterling is the first fighter in UFC history to win a title by disqualification.)
The timing makes sense. Yan defended the bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 333 on Saturday, winning a unanimous decision with three 48-47 cards. Not everyone agreed with the scoring. Ilia Topuria was filmed reacting to the result: “48-47 Yan? Nooo. What are you saying?” Yan is now a two-time UFC bantamweight champion and sits No. 4 on the men’s pound-for-pound list. He is No. 1 at 135 in Knockout Daily’s rankings with a 21-5 record.
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Sterling, 26-5, is No. 3 at featherweight in our rankings. He trains out of Serra-Longo and last fought on April 25. What he said in the post, that the cut was draining his gas tank late in fights and costing him muscle, is about as straight an answer as you’ll get from a former champ explaining why he moved up. He isn’t hinting at a return. He’s ruling one out.
That leaves Yan and O’Malley with a choice. They can move up, or they can stop hearing his name. For now Sterling has a fight of his own to handle. He meets Kevin Vallejos at UFC Fight Night 294 on November 21, on the card headlined by Prochazka vs. Stirling. If he wins impressively, “come up 145” stops sounding like a fan argument and starts sounding like a pitch to matchmakers.
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