Aljamain Sterling Pumps The Brakes On The T.J. Dillashaw Fight
Aljamain Sterling is ready to sign the paperwork to fight T.J. Dillashaw, but wants to be paid more before signing on the dotted line.
News of the bantamweight title fight between Dillashaw and Sterling came out yesterday. The UFC was looking to book the fight as the headline of UFC 279 on September 10.
It seems that Sterling has dampened the talks a bit, as he feels like he needs to be paid more. With how Sterling has blossomed in popularity and how he played the “bad guy” against Yan in their last fight, Sterling believes he is owed more.
Sterling is coming off his first title defense against Petr Yan, the same person he won the belt from. He won the title off of a DQ. Yan clearly made contact with a huge knee to the head of Sterling while he was downed, but many believed that Sterling may have put on an act, when it came to the damage it caused. Many fans and people in the media believed that the UFC needed to make it a rule that you can’t win the championship due to disqualification, but only lose it.
A fight against Dillashaw would be his second title defense and just Dillashaw’s second fight back, since his suspension he received from using PED’s.
Aljamain Sterling put out a Youtube video explaining his stance on the fight
“There’s no fight until there’s ink on paper, and as of right now, my contract is exactly the same,” Sterling said on his video.(Transcribed by MMAFighting.com)
“There has been no escalator in this fight,” Sterling said. “I’d like to think I played my part, did the right things, and even allowed myself to be the bad guy in the last outing with Petr Yan, and help play up the storyline. So one would think that being a company man would actually help you in the long run. So I did my job – as of right now, I’m training, hoping that we come to some type of agreement to give some type of pay bump which naturally happens in all the contracts.”
Sterling and Dillashaw will be a great fight once the two sides can come to an agreement. One could only imagine how long it will take of Sterling and the UFC to come to terms.
