Aljamain Sterling recently opened up further on what kept him out of the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas last Saturday at UFC 296.
As Sterling and his team rolled up for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s final pay-per-view of 2023, they were told that there were no tickets. The former bantamweight champ immediately brought the situation to light on social media.
Asked about Sterling’s ticket mishap, UFC president CEO Dana White said that “Funk Master” might have tried to acquire tickets through a sponsor and he had no idea why they might have been pulled. Sterling subsequently responded to White’s comments on his YouTube channel.
“I’m not trying to fan the flames; I think somewhere there was a little bit of a disconnect,” Sterling said. “The only thing I didn’t really understand is someone sent me the clip of Dana saying that the tickets were through a sponsor. I don’t know what that was about because I’ve never had tickets from a sponsor for any of the UFC fights, I always go through the same exact channels every single time.”
“This is the first time that that’s actually happened, so that was weird. I don’t know if that’s what someone told him, but no, I actually asked for tickets through the UFC channels and just, unfortunately—The worst part about it was not even the saying ‘no’ part, because obviously it’s a big event. I know a lot of people are coming, they’re spending top dollar. We’re fighters coming in, they comp us for free, especially if there’s a relevant fighter in the weight class. Title fight, Belal Muhammad’s got to be their kind of a thing, obviously Shavkat’s fighting too. There’s fighters that are in the presence of this event that make sense for possible future matchups. So, for me, there really wasn’t anything there, but I just wish either way, regardless, I think I should have been informed a little bit earlier.”
While the UFC staff eventually reached out to Sterling, he had already left the venue to watch the event at a rooftop bar nearby.
“So, I just tried to do everything the right way and they tried to salvage it later on to go hang out in the lounge, but like I said, I would have hung out in the lounge. I even asked for that before we even left the arena, but by the time anyone got back to us, we were already at the other event, I already opened the tab.”
The UFC’s relationship with Sterling has been strained since “Funk Master” won the bantamweight title with a disqualification win over Petr Yan. Sterling was dethroned by Sean O'Malley at UFC 292 in August, a matchup he had requested to be delayed but was declined. Sterling subsequently requested a fight with Max Holloway for his featherweight debut, which was also denied.
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