When bantamweight title-contender Aljamain Sterling got the chance to fight former champion Renan Barao he was happy. When the state of California – where their scheduled UFC 214 contest was set for – decided to not allow Barao to fight at bantamweight because of his weighing too much during training camp, Sterling was a lot less happy.
In fact, it took some serious thought on Sterling’s part to decide whether he would still fight Barao at UFC 214 at a heavier catchweight to accommodate the former divisional king, whether he would postpone the match up to a later date, or whether he would just move on from the match up completely. In the end, Sterling decided to fight a heavier Barao, do so sooner than later and keep their UFC 214 date.
It took a little time to kind of warm-up to the idea, Sterling recently admitted to the Extra Rounds podcast.
There were a couple of motivating factors – a couple pros, a couple cons. Ultimately we just came to the decision of, let’s get him now while we’re hot, while we’re on a roll and while we’re feeling good. I was having a great training camp and I kind of felt like everyone just threw a monkey wrench into everything by trying to push the fight back halfway through the training camp which was pretty unfair to me and very unprofessional, if you ask me. But here we are, and we’re going to get it on.
That Barao is something of a living legend had a lot to do with why Sterling says he decided to fight the Brazilian. Barao went without a loss for years on end and had an impressive UFC title-reign.
[Barao’s legacy] was definitely a big factor. These are the fights that people tune in to. He’s a household name, or pretty much close to it. Dana White was pegging him as one of the pound-for-pound greats at one point, pumping him up and putting him on the pedestal until TJ knocked him off of that, he explained.
So for me to be the second guy to beat Renan Barao at the bantamweight division will be a huge thing.
In the back of Sterling’s mind he still saw Barao as a bantamweight kingpin. Of course, Sterling happens to believe that he is quite capable of knocking Barao down and off.
I kind of look at it like this – When I was coming up through the ranks, Renan Barao was the guy. That was the guy to beat. Even before he won the belt I said, ‘I’m going to end up fighting this guy, I guarantee he’s probably going to be the next guy to hold the belt,’ he remembers.
I kind of look at it like this is my world championship, albeit three rounds. I do feel like this is my title fight. I think the third time’s a charm. I had two top-level fights that didn’t quite go my way – if I had two different judges, who knows, maybe that fight swings in my favor. Those two losses kind of lit a fire under my ass and had me release my hands the way I do in training a lot more in my last fight.
To fight a guy like Renan Barao – a very respectable opponent, he’s a killer in every area of the game – for me to go out there and knock this guy off and take him out, it’s going to be huge for my career.
About the author:
Elias Cepeda is a host of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Rounds Podcast, a staff writer at FloCombat, and has a weekly column for The UG Blog.
