Navajo Stirling is no longer ruling out a fight with Carlos Ulberg. The undefeated light heavyweight said on The Ariel Helwani Show that if the UFC wants the two City Kickboxing teammates to fight for the 205-pound title, the team will sit down and decide.
“If the UFC says they want us to fight, it’ll come back to the team and everyone will discuss it,” Stirling said. “We’re all part of the same gym and management, so it’s really up to them. I don’t know how I’d feel. It’s just something I’ve never really thought about, and I try not to think about.”
He added that the topic has come up inside the gym, though mostly as a joke, and that nothing gets settled until he wins his next fight. That’s the most honest answer a guy in his spot can give, and I’ll take it over a scripted “we’ll see” any day.
The shift is real. Bloody Elbow pointed out that Stirling, 28, had previously named Ulberg and Robert Whittaker as two fighters he had no intention of facing, citing their team connection and the hours they’ve logged together in training. He said that after Ulberg knocked out Jiri Prochazka at UFC 327 to win the light heavyweight title, following Israel Adesanya as the Auckland gym’s second UFC champion.
Then the résumé moved. Stirling knocked out Jan Blachowicz at UFC Belgrade, pushing his record to 11-0 and landing him at No. 6 in the rankings. The UFC answered by giving him Prochazka, the former champion, in the main event of UFC Qatar on November 21 at the Ali Bin Hamad al-Attiyah Arena in what shapes up as a potential title eliminator.
That’s the matchmaking twist worth chewing on. Prochazka is the man Ulberg beat for the belt. If Stirling finishes him too, the UFC gets an easy comparison to sell and a contender who has already beaten a former champion and the guy his teammate took the title from. Saying no to a title shot gets a lot harder at that point, for the fighter and for the gym.
The Qatar card around them is loaded. Another CKB name, Dan Hooker, is returning, along with Aljamain Sterling, Jared Cannonier, Shamil Gaziev and Aleksandre Topuria.
My take: CKB has handled heavier conversations than this, and two Kiwis fighting for a UFC belt is a problem most gyms would kill to have. But Stirling said it himself. None of it matters until he gets past Prochazka, and Prochazka has spent his career making confident people look foolish. November 21 decides whether the gym’s awkward meeting ever gets put on the calendar.
