Let's Hear it For The Good Guy, Aljamain Sterling
UFC Champion battles against the odds, through injuries, & against racism from his promotion, fans, & opponents
(Undisputed MMA bantamweight world champion Aljamain Sterling, after his victory Saturday at UFC 273.)
Fight fans online immediately drew attention to how disgusted UFC President Dana White looked while giving bantamweight world champion Aljamain Sterling his belt after the Long Island fighter’s successful title-defense over Petr Yan at UFC 273. Later, White did what he often does - tear down one of his champions instead of promoting them - and bashed the judges’ decision that awarded the fight to Sterling in his rematch with Yan.
“The judges blew that one,” White smeared, of course, without any substantive technical analysis to support his assertion.
White’s disapproval of Sterling follows an easily read pattern for the promoter. Aljamain Sterling is yet another Black UFC champion who hasn’t been afraid to critique the UFC on their labor policies and who coincidentally doesn’t get approval or praise from Donald Trump’s buddy Dana.
We see this playing out in real time with heavyweight champion Francis NGannou, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, we saw it with GOAT candidates Demetrious Johnson and Anderson Silva, we saw it with White’s condescending an insulting rhetoric towards Tyron Woodley and Jon Jones. With Sterling’s inspiring second win over Yan in two attempts (the UFC inexcusably gave Yan an immediate rematch after he lost to Sterling following committing one of the most egregious fouls in modern MMA history), the UFC now has four proud and loud Black world champions in its rank.
It isn’t surprising that Dana White is uncomfortable with that fact given that he joined with the Klu Klux Klan to endorse the same man for President, twice, and sat ringside Saturday in Jacksonville with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who once compared a Black political opponent to a monkey while calling him “articulate,” and who also once defended a supporter of his calling for more “hanging trees,” and currently opposes the teaching of system racism in schools. Despite White’s fragility, he’s surrounded by Black excellence, and will just have to deal with it.
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(Neither Black excellence nor success makes UFC President Dana White - bald, in the rear, grimacing - smile.)
Dana White’s bashing of the judges’ decision in the Sterling fight clearly shouldn’t be treated as a good-faith analysis from an informed observer. He’s got the above axe to grind and White also simply doesn’t have even a basic understanding of MMA from a technical perspective, and spends most events either looking at his phone, watching competing boxing events, or moving around the arena.
Furthermore, White didn’t give any actual technical analysis to support his feeling that he thought Yan deserved to win against Sterling. White said he scored three rounds for Yan and two for Sterling.
White presumably had the close first and fourth rounds scored for Yan, as well as the fifth round. Cool.
I had it 3-2 for Sterling, but I could have easily scored three of the rounds (1, 4, & 5) for Yan. Those three were competitive rounds and either man could have reasonably been judged to have won it by a 10-9 margin.
Decisions are awarded based on adding up those scores, round by round, by three judges. Here’s the thing; not all round wins are created equal.
Sterling spent nearly the entirety of both rounds two and three literally threatening to finish the fight from the most dominant position in all of MMA - the back mount. In fact, Yan was saved by the bell in both rounds two and three, an unfortunate MMA loophole and something not even possible in boxing.
Simply put, Sterling’s level of fight-ending threat and dominance while Yan mounted no offense at all for ten consecutive minutes means that “The Funkmaster” deserved to win both the second and third rounds by 10-8 margins. I also gave Sterling the first round, 10-9, because I interpreted the most effective and frequent offense of that conservative round to be his kicks.
So, I scored the fight 48-45 for Sterling. If one believed that Yan deserved to win the first, fourth, and fifth rounds, however, he certainly did it by mere 10-9 margins as they were all closely contested periods.
So, in the case that Yan were awarded three rounds to Sterling’s two (two rounds of utter dominance that Yan could only escape with the assistance of the referee and the bell), Sterling still would have deserved to win the fight with a score of 48-46.
When Sterling won, he dominated and threatened to end the fight, with Yan unable to escape. When Yan won, he squeaked by in competitive rounds.
No matter how an informed, reasonable observer would see it, then, Sterling deserved to win at UFC 273. Not all round wins are equal.
Not all fighters are equal, either. Yan is now 0-2 against Sterling, after getting a much easier path to title contention than Sterling did.
So, Yan is going to have to get back in line.
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Sterling graciously put Yan’s name back in contention immediately after beating him for a second time, Saturday, when he tweeted that he’d like a third fight in 2023 against the Russian. Sterling also generously threw attention former champion TJ Dillashaw’s way when he called for a fight against him after winning Saturday.
Still, the prolific PED user Dillashaw showed no gratitude towards the undisputed champion for the opportunity that being called out by Sterling presents to him. Sterling mocked Dillashaw for his PED use and Dillashaw later took to twitter to ask Sterling to perform sex acts with him.
It was strange, crude, sophomoric, and intensely White. Yan’s post-fight antics were also predictably fragile, entitled, and mayonnaise-hued.
Yan said he was “robbed,” and even said he deserved to have rounds that Sterling dominated him scored his way. This, of course, follows Yan’s astounding classlessness after their first fight when he took a coward’s way out and committed an incomprehensible foul that concussed Sterling and ended the bout in disqualification.
Instead of apologizing, Yan has taunted Sterling since then, never apologized for his foul, and was rewarded with a flimsy interim title as Sterling underwent neck surgery to repair his spine after absorbing Yan’s illegal knee to the head, a surgery that he says his doctors told him would end his career. Yan should have been suspended by the UFC and athletic commissions, instead, he was granted an immediate rematch.
Now, after losing for the second time in two attempts to Sterling, Yan’s entitlement only grew and he demanded another immediate rematch. This is all on top of Yan’s racist taunts towards Sterling that he released on social media before their first bout, where he and his team found a transient looking Black man on the street, began shouting at him and teasing him, calling him “Aljo,” one of Sterling’s nicknames, and pointing and laughing.
Dillashaw has won only twice in the past four years, and was knocked out the last time he was granted a title-shot. Yet, his cringe and entitlement continue.
In the UFC, cheating White fighters have learned that no matter how much they lose and break the rules, they will be rewarded by the promotion.
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Despite the torrent of pre-event media coverage leading up to UFC 273, here are two items you likely didn’t see or hear a word about from your favorite MMA outlet last week - 1. Yan's racist taunts at Sterling before their first fight. 2. Khamzat Chimaev's anti-Semitic remarks about Ariel Helwani while on Helwani’s MMAFighting.com popular show, The MMA Hour.
Chimaev and his friend, UFC contender Darren Till, “joked” about Helwani, a Jewish man, using stereotypes about him being a rich Jewish person from New York. I’ve certainly criticized these fighters for their stupidity and bigotry, but the silence and tacit approval from the fight mediasphere is even more enraging to me.
These colleagues are people who, for the most part, consider themselves educated, enlightened, proponents of liberal democracy and tolerance. Yet, they spend no bandwidth to even acknowledge and condemn blatant bigotry when it comes across their desk.
I've covered the fights for a living since 2006. So, when I bring up Yan's gross public anti-Black racism & Chimaev's gross public anti-Semitism, I'm mostly disgusted with the way beat media ignored all that.
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Dana White wasn’t the only person in Jacksonville who grew increasingly upset as Sterling found winning success in his exciting title-defense. The arena fans booed Sterling as he dominated and threatened to finish Yan in rounds two and three.
Then, the area fans booed Sterling when he was announced the winner, and again as he addressed them respectfully. Sterling, the inspiring fighter who had to face and beat back all contenders while speaking truth to power in order to get a title-shot, and then overcame the odds multiple time to become and stay champion, was booed.
Sterling was booed when his opponent released racist taunts at him. Sterling was booed for showing up.
Sterling was booed when his racist opponent cheated against him.
Sterling was booed when he fought well, and when he won. Sterling was booed when he thanked fans.
The following truth will come as absolutely no surprise to some readers, and as an illegible shock to others - The UFC is a racist organization, and many of its fans are vocally racist.
Not so, a self-designated Official Black Representative, told me last week on Twitter. The reason that Sterling was booed was because he didn’t act right, according to fans like this.
Got it. In a sport where the most cheered fighter (Conor McGregor) has a new assault charge every few months, threatens to murder the family members of his opponent after losing to them, Aljamain Sterling is booed because he’s the jackass.
Sure. Seems about right.
Aljamain Sterling after winning the title because of one of the most inexcusable & dangerous fouls in MMA history: Grants rematch to his cheating opponent, the same opponent who released racist taunt videos, pre-fight, overcomes neck surgery, wins rematch.
Sad, racist, MMA fans: What a jackass!
I have no problem admitting that I personally like Aljamain Sterling, or critiquing certain takes of his. Still, because of Yan’s racism, the UFC’s treatment of Black fighters like Sterling, the contrasting way the two fighters reacted to the first fight, and the American beating the odds to come back from a scary neck injury and surgery, Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan I and II were both objectively clear Good Guy vs. Bad Guy stories.
The Good Guy is up 2-0, right now. Let’s hear it for the Good Guy, for once.