Aljamain Sterling ponders future after UFC 310 loss: 'Do I continue?'

Aljamain Sterling’s loss to Movsar Evloev at UFC 310 has him pondering what’s next.

Former UFC bantamweight champion Sterling (24-5 MMA, 16-5 UFC) dropped a unanimous decision to Evloev (19-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It was a close, back-and-forth affair on the ground where Sterling showed he could hang with the elite at 145 pounds. However, the disappointing outcome left Sterling in a quandary when it comes to his title hopes.

“When we were in the back room, Ray (Longo) had just stepped out, and I told the guys, I was like, ‘I’m going to let you guys know I don’t really know what I’m going to do from here. I need to let it settle a little bit, but at ’35, I don’t know if I really want to climb the ladder all over again,'” Sterling said on his YouTube channel.

“I don’t want to say from scratch, but the end goal is so much further. I’m at a point where it’s like, is that worth the time invested for the surgeries, the pain, the training, the sacrifice? Do I still have that fight to commit to do that all the way up until the belt again, knowing that there’s still a good chance, like there’s still some other dogs that I could potentially fight and not have the fight go my way?”

After setting the record for most bantamweight title defenses at three, Sterling lost his belt to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August 2023. He then moved up to featherweight and dominated top contender Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 before losing a close decision to Evloev.

Although Sterling thinks his stock likely went up after losing to Evloev, he’ll wait and see what his path to title contention looks like before making a decision on his fighting future.

“Do I continue, or do I just help out the guys and help them get ready for their fights and what not and maybe just take fun fights? I don’t know,” Sterling said. “I don’t want to retire, but I’ve got to see what the UFC offers and then kind of make a decision to go from there to see where my positioning is. … It’s tough to even talk like this because I’m only 35. I know people think I still look good and everything, but my body hurts.

“I can’t train the way I used to. I used to do two, three training sessions a day. I can’t do that anymore. Even the grappling sessions that I would do to make 135 pounds, I feel like I can’t do that anymore. I can’t train the way I used to and I don’t know if that gave me an edge or just broke my body down more, but that’s just where I’m at. I’ve just got to see where the chips fall and go from there.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 310.