Bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling thinks the UFC on ESPN 27 headliner should only have title implications for one bantamweight.
T.J. Dillashaw returns from a two-year U.S. Anti-Doping Agency suspension to face rising star Cory Sandhagen in Saturday’s main event, and Sterling will be watching. But Sterling thinks only one fighter should emerge as the No. 1 contender if victorious.
“You beat T.J. Dillashaw, does that give you a title shot? I don’t know,” Sterling said on his “The Weekly Scraps Podcast.” “But if T.J. beats him, does that give T.J. a title shot? It should absolutely give T.J. a title shot. Absolutely. But in the sense of the other way that I’m looking at it, I don’t know what this win really does for Sandhagen other than getting another marquee name added to his resume.”
Sterling (20-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) holds a quick submission win over Sandhagen (14-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) in June 2020, which catapulted him to a shot at the title. “The Funkmaster” went on to capture the belt from Petr Yan thanks to a disqualification this past March at UFC 259 and due to the controversial ending, the pair is expected to rematch before the end of the year.
Despite Sterling saying that Dillashaw (16-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) would deserve a title shot if he prevails, he’s leaning toward Sandhagen to get the job done considering Dillashaw’s recent inactivity due to testing positive for erythropoietin, more commonly known as EPO.
“T.J.’s been suspended, out of competition for two years, he cheated,” Sterling said. “He’s been cheating for a very long time. Ask his teammates. This is something that has been disclosed to me years ago, and of course you don’t want to be the whistle blower and not have any evidence, but the evidence has been his former teammates talking about it, and of course now being caught. I think it’s pretty safe to say where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and he said at the press conference against Cody Garbrandt ‘yeah right’ when Garbrandt said, ‘Bro, you were the one showing everyone how to do it,’ and everyone just brushed it under the rug.
“I’m just excited to see this fight. I think it’s gonna be a good stylistic matchup. A guy who’s so much taller, rangier, fights with so much calmness and now fighting with a little more stank in terms of brutality, trying to really hurt guys in there. I think it’s gonna be a very, very fun fight to watch. If I had to put my money on it, I gotta say Sandhagen gets the job done. These guys used to train together, and I do believe them formally training together gives him some type of confidence that he understands what he’s dealing with going in there. If T.J.’s truly off the stuff, I like Sandhagen’s chances even better in this one.”
