LAS VEGAS – Aljamain Sterling untied the UFC belt around his waist and dropped it on the Octagon carpet with a noise. Sterling then got on his knees and put his head on the canvas.
It wasn’t the behavior of someone who had just realized a long-held dream of becoming a UFC champion. But those were the extremely bizarre circumstances of the UFC weightlifting fight on Saturday at UFC 259.
Sterling won the title by disqualification at 4 minutes, 29 seconds from the fourth round after Yan landed an illegal knee in Sterling’s head. The doctor in the ring determined that Sterling, who was visibly swaying on his knees, could not fight any further. The referee whistles for a foul Mark Smith is guilty of misconduct.
Sterling later took to Twitter and expressed disappointment over how the fight ended.
“Not like I would ever want to win a fight,” he wrote in his tweet. “He was close, competitive and full of action. I felt my knee was intentional, especially after the referee announced that I was a downed opponent, so I didn’t expect to be hit. Yan is a bad guy !!”
Yan also posted on Twitter, apologizing and wishing Sterling a “quick recovery.”
“I didn’t want to go on an illegal strike,” Yan wrote. “I just made a big mistake and paid for it.”
What made the ending even weirder was that Yan was in full control of the fight. He was starting to pick Sterling in the third and fourth rounds of boxing. Sterling, who worked hard to push the pace and make Yan feel uncomfortable, seemed to run out of steam, with Yan coming in the final rounds.
Sterling had a strong start to the fight. He landed with two jumping knees in Yan’s head in the first round. Yan gathered late in the first, leaving Sterling with his left hand.
Sterling continued to apply pressure in the second, but Yan was mostly unpleasant. He filled almost all of Sterling’s elimination attempts and was good at clinch.
Yan landed a few left and right hands in the fourth round, leading to the strange end.
The judges had Yan ahead 29-28, 29-28, 28-29 going into the fourth, a round Yan winning convincingly in front of the illegal knee.
Yan and Sterling ranked No. 1 and 2nd place in the ESPN ranking in the MMA bantam ranking, respectively. UFC 259 took place with coronavirus protocols in place at UFC Apex, a facility opposite the UFC corporate campus.
Sterling (20-3) won six times ago. The New York native, who trained at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, would win his first victory over Cory Sandhagen at the UFC 250 in June. Sterling, 31, has a UFC record of 12-3.
Yan (15-2) won the UFC vacant title in the bantam category, defeating Jose Aldo at UFC 251 in July last year. The Russian native had won 10 in a row, including the top seven in the UFC. Yan, 28, regularly trains at Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand, but moved to the American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida, this time due to travel inconveniences related to COVID-19. .