Former UFC Bantamweight Champion Aljamain Sterling recently sat down with Ignition Casino to discuss his life both inside and outside the Octagon.
In this exclusive interview, Sterling reflects on his recent victory at the Celebrity Poker Tour in the Bahamas, drawing sharp parallels between maintaining a poker face on the felt and surviving the pressure of a world championship fight.
He also breaks down his desire to face Alexander Volkanovski at the card table, explains how he got under the skin of rising contender Lerone Murphy, and offers a candid analysis of Conor McGregor’s injury recovery and future prospects.
Key Takeaways
- Sterling compares the strategic pressure of championship fighting to high-stakes poker and credits a relaxed mindset for his recent tournament victory.
- Challenging Alexander Volkanovski to a head-to-head poker match would be a highly effective way to promote a future featherweight title fight.
- Sterling views rising contender Lerone Murphy as his ideal next opponent and believes he has already successfully got under Murphy’s skin following a humorous clash in Baku.
- Conor McGregor should target a sensible comeback matchup against Michael Chandler instead of immediately fighting the elite tier.
- Overanalyzing health data from modern fitness trackers can create unnecessary mental stress and distract athletes from their training.
Q. You won a Celebrity Poker Tour event in the Bahamas last December. What was the experience like, both playing and being at that location?
AS: The location was great. It was at Atlantis in the Bahamas, and it was my first time going to that section of the Bahamas. The ambience was cool. We played some other games and all the competitors would group up and play different games together, so that was all fun. Then, just playing the tournament, that was probably the best I’ve ever played, I’m not going to lie. I was drinking some of my rum all night, and people thought, “This guy can’t be serious. He’s not that good.” I just kept winning hand after hand. Sure enough, I had the biggest pot on the table.
I think it’s more about strategy, and playing that way, that looser style, helped me loosen up and understand that sometimes it really is about chance. The last tournament I ended up losing on the river. I had the strongest hand, I had a big pot and I had to go all-in because you just can’t fold what I had. I think it was ace-king suited, and I believe I had two of them on the table, and I lost on the river. You just never know. Sometimes you have to trust the hand and hope the hand you’re dealt is good enough. It was just a good experience overall, and it’s kind of like fighting. Sometimes you have to have a poker face and try to lull your opponent into something so you can set them up.
Q. Is there a similarity between poker and fighting when it comes to relaxing, finding a flow state and not overthinking?
AS: There’s a big similarity. With fighting, I would get super nervous in the beginning of my career. As I’ve gotten older, had more experience and gotten more comfortable in the Octagon, I think I’ve just found my home, found my footing and understood my groove. You know how you want to play and what your strategy is. It’s very similar in that regard. The same thing happens with poker. Believe it or not, you still get this anxiety and anxiousness because you’re not sure what to do. Then you kind of have to take a step back, relax and realize, “Hey, we’ve played this many, many times. We’ve been here before. Let’s just take it one hand at a time and go from there.”
Q. Alexander Volkanovski is also a big poker player. Would playing him head-to-head be a good way to promote a potential title fight?
AS: I love the idea of that. I went head-to-head with Henry Cejudo at one of the Celebrity Poker Tour tournaments and knocked him out, so I’m 2-0 against Henry now. I think that would be a cool way to promote it. I know Volk also loves his cooking channel, which is very popular, and he actually does a very good job with that. We hung out in Thailand and did a cooking show together, and he can chef it up pretty good. I would like to challenge him in a different avenue. Come to my world, play a little poker, and let’s see how we do head-to-head.
Q. Which UFC fighter do you think would be easiest to bluff at the poker table?
AS: I’m trying to think of who the hotheads are, the ones you could probably get in their head a little bit. Lerone Murphy would probably be an easy one for me to get in his head. We had some words in Baku, which was pretty crazy. I’m over here just taking the piss, kind of making jokes, and he took it really seriously. I would love to play against him. I think that would be pretty fun. I think I could bluff him pretty good because I think it would be pretty easy.
Q. What actually happened between you and Lerone Murphy in Baku?
AS: I was just making jokes and then he escalated it, but I was just having a little fun. I guess I got up and said, “Are there any 145ers in here who could actually challenge me? No, actually challenge me?” I guess he started getting a little irritated, which I understand, but I was just like, “Dude, I’m clearly joking.” Then he one-upped it and said, “You’ll never be a champion.” I was like, “Well, I already won the belt. You had your shot, and what happened? You kind of got shut out. If it wasn’t for a point deduction, it wouldn’t even be a conversation.” So I started to dig in a little bit. That’s kind of what I do. But at 145, I like all these guys because I was at 135 for so long, so it’s kind of hard to chirp them.
It was fun entertainment. I think everybody had a great time listening to it because they all pulled out their phones. You just see Lerone’s face, him being really serious and me laughing the whole time. It reminded me of McGregor and José Aldo. It was one of those moments where he’s super serious, and this guy has his food on the table, laughing, and he’s just thinking, “I hate this guy right now.”
Q. Could you fight Lerone Murphy next?
AS: Lerone Murphy makes sense for me. I think he deserves his flowers. Lerone Murphy is a top-level talent. He’s very skilled and he’s beaten some really good guys. When he’s had dangerous fights, he knows how to adjust. He’s not a big power puncher, so he knows how to use his style in the most effective way possible, utilising his kickboxing and his footwork. He has some really nice spinning attacks, and he’s got some grit. He’s had some really tough fights and battled back, Edson Barboza being one of them, where he got hurt. Then he took a tough, unknown challenger in Aaron Pico and knocked him out after some adversity early on. I think he’s a top-level talent, for sure. That’s why it was funny that he got so riled up. I’m just like, “Dude, don’t tell me it’s this easy to get under your skin. I’m clearly making a joke.” You don’t have to know me to know it.
But with that said, I think he does deserve his flowers. He’s pretty good. I think he’s one of those people everyone will miss when he’s gone. Part of it is that he doesn’t really talk very much. He’s not very vocal. I think that’s probably what it is. When you don’t say much and you’re not getting finishes, people tend to overlook you. That has always been the nature of the beast with our game. He doesn’t need to be a big talker, but if he starts getting some finishes, which is harder to do the higher up the division you are because guys know how to fight well and they’re not looking to get finished, people will take more notice. They’re looking to do the finishing themselves, so I get it.
Q. Between your career in the Octagon and launching your own business ventures like Funk Harbor Rum, how do you find that balance and stay in championship shape?
AS: You kind of learn when it’s time to go and when it’s time to be serious. With fighting, I tried to do it the way the greats did it. Do nothing. Just be clean. No sex, no alcohol, no chasing women, and try to get to bed early. I did that for a couple of fights and realized how much it sucked. Then Jon Jones opened a door for me. I had a fight about five weeks out, and he was maybe a week or two out. To see him doing what he was doing made me scratch my head and go, “Well, if he’s going out there and dominating, maybe there’s some wiggle room where I can still be human and enjoy life a little bit.”
I realized it’s about your training. If you feel comfortable in your training and your mental state is okay, and it’s not going to get in your head where you’re thinking, “I shouldn’t have done that,” then I think you’ll be okay. Again, everything in moderation. I’m not promoting that athletes should be doing X, Y and Z. It’s moderation. Know yourself, know your body and know what you’re comfortable with.
Q. Do modern sleep and recovery trackers risk giving athletes too much information?
AS: I used to wear the ring, and it would tell me how shit my sleep was. Even if I wasn’t drinking or doing anything, it would tell me I shouldn’t be training and should be resting. I’m like, “Dude, if I lived by this, where I had to be optimal with everything, I don’t know where my career would be.” I really don’t. Maybe there’s something to be said about having balance with that as well. I would rather enjoy myself a little bit more and not have this thing in the back of my mind telling me I’m doing this wrong and doing that wrong. It’s just too much.
Q. Do you believe McGregor entered the fight already injured or was looking for a way out?
AS: I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t come back and pull something like that. The fans lose, Paramount loses and he loses stock. I don’t think he would want to put himself in that position and tarnish his legacy, his name and everything he has done in the sport. You saw when Max touched his shoulder during the embrace at the end and said, “Dude, why the f*** did you come back?” Conor turns, and you can see it. I know what that feels like when someone says something like that to you, and it hits you deep. You’re like, “Damn, this sucks.” That did not look like a man who came there with an injury, looking to find an easy way out. You can say anything about his demeanour. He didn’t look as confident once he got in and all the talking stopped, but that’s beside the point. Specifically with the injury, I don’t believe he was hurt coming into that.
Q. Could McGregor still come back and compete at the very top level of the UFC?
AS: Not at the top level. I think you have to give him a matchup that’s going to give him his confidence back, let him see where he’s at and where he can compete. He doesn’t need to do anything crazy. Just skill for skill. He doesn’t need jumping moves or spinning back kicks. Just come in, see where your hands are, see how it feels to move and pivot, see if you’ve got that same bounce and see if you can compete with those guys. If you can’t, that’s going to be the real gauge. But you also don’t want to take the risk of losing to a relatively unknown name and then losing a potential big fight that you could have had. At the same time, do you want to have the big fight and then get really, really hurt? It depends on him.
The way I would do it is to come back in a matchup that makes sense. I don’t want to call it a tune-up fight because all these guys are tough, but get a matchup that makes sense. I always said he should have come back and fought Chandler. That would have made more sense. Stylistically, it’s good. Chandler isn’t going to wrestle him. He’s going to stand with him and want to make it entertaining. Then you have an opportunity to see if Conor is good enough to beat a guy like Chandler, who is good, but he’s not at the top of the heap anymore at 155 or even 170, because I think Chandler said he wants to move up.
Q. Could McGregor leave the UFC and pursue boxing or other big crossover fights instead?
AS: The possibilities for McGregor are endless. He may not be Mystic Mac anymore, but he’s still Conor McGregor. People are going to tune in because they want to watch him and see what he’s doing next. He’s always going to have that aura and enigma about him. But the prospect who came in starching everybody and calling his shots, those days are probably done. If he can have one good fight, he can maybe turn back the clock a little bit, but it depends on how he looks in the performance. There’s Nate Diaz, there’s Jorge Masvidal, and there are so many good matchups. He could even fight Jake Paul. There are fun fights for him on the horizon. It just depends on whether the UFC gives him that fight sooner rather than later.
Now, with this injury, he’s probably going to have to undergo surgery. That’s at least six months. I’ve seen guys come back in six months, so that’s the minimum before he could come back and have confidence in it again. I don’t know what that looks like, but he’s going to need to do a lot to strengthen those ligaments on both knees because I believe it was the other one that popped this time, if I’m correct. He needs to make sure he balances that out and does everything he needs to get back into somewhat prime form for competition, not just training. It’s one thing to fight and another thing to just be training.
Q. Are you currently negotiating your next fight, and who makes the most sense for you?
AS: There were three names floated to me. I think the one that makes the most sense, which wasn’t floated, is Lerone Murphy. He’s an Englishman, but he’s also Jamaican, so that fight would kind of suck because we would both have to compete and knock one another off. But it’s the matchup that makes the most sense because he’s the highest-ranked guy.
I want to fight the best guy who is going to get me to the title shot the fastest. I’m not the youngest anymore. I’m 36, turning 37 this month. Lerone Murphy makes the most sense for that. It’s more of a respect thing. There’s no animosity or anything like that. He’s just the highest-ranked guy behind, I believe, Diego Lopes. I don’t know if they would give me Diego, and I’m hearing Diego is possibly moving up as well. I want to move up the rankings, but if they give me Jean Silva or something like that, I’m okay with that too. We’ll see what happens. Jean Silva is a tough fight. Some people think it would be an easy one for me. Man, he’s a tougher fight than people realise. Maybe they’re just really impressed with what I did to a guy like Youssef. But fighting is fighting. Every fight is different. Matchups can look good and then they can be bad. That’s why I have to do my job in the gym and make sure I’m ready.
Q. Are you resigned to Alexander Volkanovski defending against Movsar Evloev next, or do you still believe you could get the title shot?
AS: There’s always going to be hope until there’s ink on paper. Until that fight is actually done, I’m still hopeful that I could potentially slide in there for the title shot.
Q. How do you think your skill set matches up with Volkanovski?
AS: For sure, it would be a fan-friendly fight. I don’t think Volk could fight any other way. With that said, I think I have a really good style to mix things up and threaten him. He had a one-sided fight with Ortega, but Ortega had two big moments where it looked like Volk was almost going to get put to sleep. I don’t think he would tap. I think he would have gone to sleep. I have that threat, especially with the wrestling takedowns that I have. I’m strong in the clinch, I’m strong if I attack the legs, and I think my footwork on the feet is very good. I think I match up well with him.
Even with the striking, people don’t think I can strike very well. I use my striking to an end, as a means to something. I’m looking for something specific that I’m trying to do. But if I’m forced to strike, like I had to with Youssef, Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera, I can fight him anywhere. It’s hard to say where the fight would go. Volk is really tough when he gets to the top position. On the bottom, Islam had his back, but I think me taking his back looks a little different. I’m going to hunt the submission, but I have ways to strike from that position as well. I could possibly flatten him out, and who knows, I could probably get the submission too.
Q. Could you ever see yourself getting the rematch with Sean O’Malley?
AS: Not really, unless he comes to 145. There’s really no chance of a rematch, and I don’t think he would want to do that either. I think he knows that was lightning in a bottle. It was a fast turnaround, and the stars aligned for him that night. I’ve talked about that. He was the better man that night, but this is why I didn’t want to fight him so quickly. I wanted time to actually prepare and not go into a training camp banged up. That’s the difference. Yeah, he tore or popped his rib, whatever it was, during training camp, but he had also sat on the sidelines for 11 months. There’s a big difference between getting hurt before coming into camp and getting hurt while you’re in training camp.
Again, kudos to him. The UFC lined him up, and this is why they said they wouldn’t give me the rematch. It wasn’t O’Malley who said he wasn’t giving me a rematch. It was the UFC who said they weren’t giving me a rematch. I think that’s very, very telling of why they did what they did with the timing. Again, good for him. He became a champion. He’s still high-level, so it’s not like I lost to a bum. But I think most people know what would happen if we ran that back, especially at 145, where I’m not cutting as much weight.
Q. Who should Petr Yan defend the bantamweight title against next?
Aljamain Sterling: He should fight Merab. Merab gave him the opportunity to fight him, and Merab himself fought him on short notice. The difference is that Merab pushed for the fight to happen on that quick turnaround. In hindsight, I still think that was an error and something I tried to talk him out of. But he wanted to challenge himself, so who am I to say no? It’s the fight game. You never know what’s going to happen. You roll the dice, and it was Petr Yan’s night. Merab had a very dominant fight the first time. This one was a lot closer, but Yan was kind of in the driver’s seat from the very beginning.
With that said, I would like to see how it plays out in a third fight. This time, I would like to be a lot more involved in his camp, with his preparation and the things we need to look out for and be prepared for. One thing I pointed out to him was that Yan didn’t use his right hand as much in the first fight. Maybe four or five times he actually threw it through or threw it hard. Merab’s right hand was also busted up, so they were even in that regard. But when Yan came back healthy, you could see him using the right hand a lot more, even in his fights after the first Merab fight. I think there was a bit of an oversight in the fight camps. I think me being involved is going to change things and level the playing field a little bit more. I’m excited to jump into camp with him and help him. Hopefully, we get to fight on the same card. I’m hearing he is supposed to fight in Abu Dhabi. If that’s the fight that happens, and I could be there with him, that would be great.
Q. Why are you so invested in Merab’s career? Are you thinking about becoming a coach after you retire?
AS: I would say it’s more the type of person I am. When we were both living in New York, we ran a lot of the training camps ourselves, or I helped structure a lot of the training camps for the guys. There was probably a year or two where the team only lost about five times, in regard to everyone who was part of the program we were doing. We had the MMA wrestling classes, structured the sparring classes and did technical stuff before we started sparring live. A lot of those things have changed, which I think can even be seen in my own performances.
With that said, for me to jump back into Merab’s camp like that, I think it’s going to pay more dividends than it has in the past. He has looked good in some of those fights, but I think there’s something definitely missing that would make it a little bit more dominant or would have helped him win that last fight with Petr. Who knows, maybe I’m completely wrong, but I do think the way we used to do things was very beneficial. The only thing is that it’s more time-consuming on my part to watch tape for everybody who is fighting and break everything down, especially while I’m still in the middle of my own career. I’m getting ready to fight for a title, and I was doing that even when I was the champion.
I’m excited for the future and to see what it holds for both of us. We’ve both had great careers. It’s cool for us both to be in the conversation for the greatest bantamweights of all time. Now, I think it’s a three-headed race between myself, Merab and Petr Yan. If Merab can go out there and beat Petr Yan, I think he gets back to number one. Then it’s a conversation between Yan, myself and Dominick Cruz. TJ Dillashaw is there too, but the allegations that he was possibly cheating for a very, very long time and finally got caught might eliminate him from that conversation. He’s still a top-level talent.
Q. How do you see Ian Machado Garry versus Islam Makhachev?
AS: I can see Islam controlling him in the later rounds, but Ian did so well with a guy like Shavkat, who is a much bigger guy. Some people are going to say, “Well, Islam isn’t Shavkat,” and Islam also isn’t Khabib. Their ground games are at different levels, I would say and argue. Maybe that’s because the competition is a little bit stiffer now than it was when Khabib was fighting. There are so many different variables you can look at and point to. Ian’s frame, his range and those oblique kicks, where he’s doing those knee stomps, are going to play some type of factor in this. I’m excited to see it. I don’t really know how it’s going to go.
If I’m a betting man, I would put my money on Islam because he’s the frontrunner and his body of work speaks for itself. A lot of them have been short-notice fights, but that isn’t his fault. He fought the best guys they put in front of him and the replacements they put in front of him. But Ian has looked really good as of late. He had a tough fight with Carlos Prates, where he started to slow down and Carlos started to put it on him a little bit. Then you have the fight with Shavkat. Shavkat was able to control him in the later round. But even before that, I think Ian has been showing progression. It’s going to be interesting to see how he does with Islam, and I think it’s going to be more competitive than people think. I don’t think it’s going to be a one-sided highway where Islam is just running him over. I pick Islam, but I think there are going to be problems in the fight where Ian could possibly shock the world.
Q. Who wins between Dricus Du Plessis and Kamaru Usman?
AS: Man, Du Plessis is such a big man there. But to see what Usman did with Khamzat on such short notice, the only thing I’m worried about with Usman is his chin. I’ve seen him a couple of times where he gets touched and looks a little uncomfortable, like the shots affect him more than they possibly should at this age. Du Plessis isn’t the sharpest striker, but it works. It’s effective. How he makes it work is always beyond me. People who talk shit about my striking, I go, “I don’t think mine looks like that.”
With that said, Usman isn’t a jiu-jitsu guy. He isn’t very dominant in holding guys down on the ground, but against the cage he does a very good job pinning guys and has a very high work rate in that regard. If Du Plessis hasn’t learned to get up off his back, I think Usman wins this.
