Aljamain Sterling discusses his relationship with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones: “We aren’t as cool as we once were”

Aljamain Sterling is discussing his relationship with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones.

Sterling (23-4 MMA) and Jones (27-1 MMA) were junior college wrestling teammates at SUNY Morrisville.

While only two years apart in age, both fighters have had much success in the Octagon.

‘Bones’ is the current UFC heavyweight champion, most recently defeating Ciryl Gane (12-2 MMA) in March of this year at UFC 285.

‘Funk Master’ is the former UFC bantamweight champion. Sterling last fought and was defeated via way of TKO by Sean O’Malley (17-1 MMA), who in turn became the new holder of the belt.

Aljamain Sterling, spoke about training with Jon Jones during a recent segment on his YouTube channel:

“Then, I ran into my good friend from way back then, Jon Jones, who I met at SUNY Morrisville, who was training down the road. So, Jon Jones training down the road at SUNY Cortland, I see his pictures and videos on MySpace. I message him, I say hey brother, I want to come down and try this out. He said, with open arms, like, ‘Yeah, come down’ and then when I said I’m coming down, he straight up just flat out told me, and this is is brother to brother speaking right, he was like, ‘Ninja, you ain’t gonna come, you ain’t gonna show up’.”

Continuing Sterling emphasized how close they were in the early days:

“I’m just like, ‘yo, my ninja, I guarantee you I’mma pull up, bet.’ Pulled up, never stopped training since that day. That was a conversation between him, and I was back then. I really did enjoy Jon’s company back then, I didn’t really know him all that well back then, but he was cool when it came to the wrestling, showing me stuff.” 

Concluding, Aljamain Sterling alluded to where he and Jon Jones are at now (h/t MMANews):

“Jon was just really cool and I don’t know what happened along the way, I think something happened but whatever, that’s a whole other conversation. We aren’t as cool as we once were but that’s natural.”

“Obviously he trained somewhere else, I train somewhere else, I breakdown fights, I can’t be biased so it’s not like I’m going to be sitting here just saying Jon was going to beat everyone.” 

What do you think of Aljamain Sterling’s reflections on how the relationship between he and Jon Jones changed over the years?

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