Aljamain Sterling reveals he would’ve contemplated retirement had he lost at UFC 300

Aljamain Sterling says he likely would have retired had he lost to Calvin Kattar at UFC 300.

Sterling entered the fight making his featherweight debut as he was coming off a knockout loss to Sean O’Malley to lose his bantamweight title. With Sterling moving up in weight, he says the pressure was on him as he was second-guessing his career.

“Fight day in the back room was when I really started to second guess a lot of everything. I was just having doubts of, like, ‘Man, if this doesn’t go well, I don’t know where I go from here. Do I continue to keep fighting? Or do I just call it quits?’ [That] kind of thing. And those were real thoughts I had. Because I’m like, at the end of the day, I’m not just trying to just collect a check. There’s so many guys who stick around just to do that. I respect them, but I’m here to be number one, man,” Sterling said on The MMA Hour.

“If it’s just like, I’m just going to be in the pack? I made enough money, I think I’ve done enough with my career where I’m like, ‘Alright, it’s probably time to find a new job.’ That’s kind of the way I look at things. If you’re not first, you’re kind of last.”

Aljamain Sterling says had he been dominated or finished by Calvin Kattar it likely would have been hit for him.

“It depends on how it would’ve happened,” Sterling said. “I think if I had got my ass completely kicked by Calvin Kattar, I was probably done. And no one knew about that. I didn’t share those sentiments with anybody, even my fiancee. It’s just one of those things. I mentioned to her like, ‘Well, if I can’t beat him, I don’t know,’ but I didn’t really go into detail what that actually meant. I just kind of said it, like, ‘We’ll see what happens. I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ That’s kind of the way I kept it with everybody.

“My internal thoughts were, ‘This guy is good, but if I’m claiming to be who I think I am and who I want to be, man, I feel like I should be able to beat a guy like this,” Sterling added. “If I can’t, then how am I ever going to expect to beat the guy who’s sitting on top of the throne right now?’”

Ultimately, Aljamain Sterling ended up beating Calvin Kattar by a one-sided decision to put him into title contention at featherweight. Sterling is now ranked eighth at featherweight and is hoping to face Brian Ortega next time out.