Aljamain Sterling reacts to Dana White’s “weird” explanation about UFC 296 ticket issue: “I’m not trying to fan the flames”

By Susan Cox - December 19, 2023

Aljamain Sterling is reacting to Dana White’s ‘weird’ explanation about his ticket issue at UFC 296.

Aljamain Sterling, UFC 296, Dana White, UFC

The former UFC bantamweight champion, Sterling, arrived at UFC 296 this past weekend expecting to receive tickets, but upon arrival found the doors locked at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Speaking at the UFC 296 post-fight press conference, when asked about the situation with ‘Funkmaster’, Dana White said:

“Well they were tickets that … he was with a sponsor. I don’t know how they got pulled or what happened, but the team reached right out to him, and he was like, ‘Yeah, never mind, I’m good, I’m gonna leave.’”

Aljamain Sterling spoke on his YouTube channel about the misstep that caused him to miss seeing the fights in person last Saturday night (h/t MMAMania):

“I’m not trying to fan the flames, I just think somewhere there was a little bit of a disconnect. The only thing I didn’t understand was someone sent me a clip of I guess Dana saying that the tickets were through a sponsor. I don’t know what that was about because I’ve never had tickets from a sponsor for any of the UFC fights, I always go through the same exact channels every single time. This is the first time that that’s actually happened so … that was weird. I don’t know if that was like what someone told him, but no, I actually asked for tickets through the UFC channels.”

Sterling (23-4 MMA) last fought in August of this year at UFC 292 where he was defeated by Sean O’Malley (17-1 MMA) via TKO at 0:51 of round 2. Prior to that loss, the 34-year-old had been on a 9-fight winning streak.

Evidently the fighter did watch UFC 296 at a nearby bar.

Who would you like to see Aljamain Sterling get in the cage with next?

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Topics:

Aljamain Sterling Dana White UFC