Aljamain Sterling claims the UFC is milking Jose Aldo for “every last dollar”

After the news was announced about a bantamweight title fight between champion Henry Cejudo and former featherweight champion Jose Aldo, who is coming off a loss in his last fight, many bantamweight contenders took exception. One of those bantamweights, Aljamain Sterling, continued to express his frustration with the matchup on Tuesday.

During an interview with MMA Tonight on Sirius XM with RJ Clifford and UFC light heavyweight Anthony Smith, Sterling discussed why he believes the UFC picked Aldo over him. When asked about the decision, Sterling said he believes the UFC is milking the former champion for his money before his career is over.

🔊🚨 @funkmasterMMA tells @RJcliffordMMA and @lionheartasmith why he believes the UFC went with Jose Aldo over him to fight Henry Cejudo, and says he's the guy to beat in the bantamweight division. 👊 pic.twitter.com/LgzrGwt35h

— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) February 26, 2020

“I’m not inside the UFC’s organization so I don’t really know what the UFC brass does, but I would imagine it has something to do with Jose Aldo being able to bring in more money through Combate or one of those Brazilian sponsors. From where I stand they’re milking him for every last dollar they can while he’s still around.”

Image: Jose Aldo Junior on Facebook

While Aldo certainly has a Brazilian following and the scheduled fight against Cejudo is slated to take place in Brazil, Sterling says in a sport where you’re judged based off your recent fights, Aldo doesn’t offer much optimism in selling this PPV fight.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a PPV draw so to speak. Being a guy coming off two losses, I understand he’s a popular guy in terms of what he has done in the past, but to be honest this is about ‘what have you done for me lately?’ and lately, 2-4 in your last six fights is not a very good number to have that warrants a title shot, you don’t see that too often. I’m just going to say Jose got lucky with this one.

While Sterling tried to see it from an optimistic point of view from the Aldo side of things, he did not hold back when discussing the current champion, Henry Cejudo.

“Henry Cejudo kind of bi***ing out and wanting to fight a guy who he thinks he’s matches up better with because at the end of the day he knows I’m a much better fight for him. I’m younger, I’m faster, I’m stronger, I’m confident right now and I’m too fast, I’m too explosive, even dynamite couldn’t hold me. That’s the fight they [UFC] wanted to make, I’m hoping it backfires. And it backfires on Henry and maybe he gets smacked up and loses the belt, he’ll be beltless, then I don’t know what we’ll call him, maybe we’ll call him Henry Chump.”

Sterling has said that he believes there could be a four-man tournament to determine the next bantamweight contender after Cejudo-Aldo fight for the title, and he welcomes a fight with Petr Yan or Cory Sandhagen as he eyes a title shot in the near future.

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on 2/25/2020