It’s water under the bridge for Aljamen Sterling when it comes to Henry Cejudo and the former champion team. But he does have a few words of advice for Team Cejudo when it comes to who can build the hype for the fight.
Cejudo’s longtime coach, Eric Albarracin, has been involved in a bit too much to Sterling’s liking. The UFC bantamweight champion warns it’s one thing when opponents talk and another when they talk in their corners.
“When my teammates make fun and do things and act like they’re going to attack somebody on the team, or even me, I get a little bit more defensive and on edge,” Sterling said Monday. MMA watch. “Because I am now [have] That New York vibe, right where I come from, when people do things like that, you call them out on it, you check them out. And she’s like, “Yo, what are you trying to do?”
“So it wasn’t more about them getting in my head. It was more about, be a gentleman. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. If [Cejudo] He wants to be a clown, be awkward, be whatever, be a heel, let him do it. But we won’t actually fight. Eric Albarracin, we will not be afraid to fight.
“For a bitch to say, ‘Make him pee blood. “I’m like, ‘How about I make you pee blood? What about trainers who make you pee blood?’”
For all the talk, security was only required at the ceremonial weigh-ins, when Sterling and Sejudo got a little physical after facing the cameras. Sterling said there is a reason why he and his team remain professional.
He said, “We don’t act like savages and buffoons—respect yourselves and your team, and hold yourselves up for it.” “You can be a winner and still do whatever you want and not have to be a complete idiot, so that was all I had on that.”
Sterling is not a unique target for Team Cejudo. Albarracin is famous for playing the hype man for his fighter and cutting his boredom with spicy predictions about the outcome of fights. That might one day get the dracaena in trouble, said the hero, so it was up to him to check this behaviour.
“It’s like the people who always cry wolf, once you actually retaliate and hit them in the face for saying something clever, when they’re not the ones walking in with you, they now want to make accusations and things like that,” Sterling said. I stick to all of these people doing all that s*** because, well, it sucks.
“It’s one thing if we’re going to fight — well, great, but we’re not going to fight, you’re not going to fight my teammates, but you’re sitting here pestering them like they’re not going to beat you up. And if they’re going to beat you up, what are we going to do now, we’re going to end up in a brawl, that’s what’s going to happen. So Now you’re going to scrap the whole fight, because your teammates are completing their bags. There’s a place and time for everything. Other than that, I think I did the universe a favor in finally shutting down Henry Cejudo.”
Cejudo hoped to use Sterling’s victory to launch a move up to the featherweight division, which would have made him the only UFC fighter to hold titles in three different weight classes. Sterling himself expects to go up to 145 pounds after taking on bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley. But his work with Cejudo is over, and for all the talk, there are no hard feelings.
“He’s competitive,” Sterling said. “At the end of the day… I had to shatter another man’s dreams to make mine come true, and that’s what sports are all about. It can be a very violent and dark place for a few minutes, but then, when all is said and done, we can go our separate ways.” .
“I don’t have a problem with the guy, for example, personally. I think he’s a little weird. I find him funny, because some of the things he does are like weird and weird, but they’re kind of funny. I think that’s what Kerenji means. … But yeah, no It bothers me outside of that. It’s just, he signed on the dotted line. That was the guy who was meant to fight, and when he signs it, it’s like, you or me, man.”