JRE MMA Show #184 with Aljamain Sterling

Aljamain Sterling praised Shavkat Rakhmonov as a complete and legitimate fighter after watching him take Geoff Neal down despite elite standup, then finish the fight by grabbing the far arm to maintain back control, locking in a figure four, and using a deceptive sit-up motion to bait Neal into moving before securing the choke. Sterling credited his coach Matzar with teaching him to protect the choke before attempting any escape from back control. Rogan noted Rakhmonov is over six feet tall for his weight class and has finished every fight in the first round.

Sterling reflected on how the wars he fought on the way to the title changed his fighting style. Rogan called Sterling's back control the best he has ever seen in the sport and singled out the Sandhagen finish as exceptional. Sterling described the second Petr Yan fight as redemption and disclosed that he has a fake disc in his neck with nerve damage in his tricep that still causes visible shaking on one side during planks or Pilates. He said he walks around at 178 pounds and that moving up to 145 reduced his anxiety about making weight and caused his body to hold less water.

Sterling described his weight management as a staged four-month camp cut, walking down through the 170s to 165, 160, and finally competing at 155, and acknowledged that cutting too quickly in earlier camps noticeably degraded his cardio in rounds four and five. He said he only used IV rehydration once around 2015 and felt no meaningful performance difference. He drinks one or two beers and eats Thai chili wings the night before fights as a pre-fight ritual, and noted his Oura ring repeatedly flagged alcohol as disrupting sleep before he threw it away. Rogan argued even one drink could cost a fighter the extra REM sleep that separates a close fight, while Sterling countered that if one drink costs him the win, he was not supposed to win.

Rogan and Sterling agreed the gap between 185 and 205 pounds is too large and a weight class around 195 should exist, and that the gap between 155 and 170 is the most challenging 15-pound jump in MMA. Rogan proposed weight classes every 10 pounds with a bridger class around 220 to 225 and then unlimited for true heavyweights, noting Tim Sylvia was cutting hard just to make 265 and that Mike Tyson competed around 220 and Cain Velasquez around 240 when both were dominating. Sterling said DC told him Cain consistently beat him in training and was the better man in the room, and Rogan said DC could have potentially been the greatest heavyweight of all time had he stayed at the division.

Sterling argued that Merab Dvalishvili is arguably the best grappler from the top and clinch position in MMA history, and that Sean O'Malley fought their second bout with a torn hip. He said Merab entered the rematch with championship-level confidence and a clear belief he could take O'Malley down, which proved decisive. On Islam Makhachev versus Ian Garry, Sterling said Garry has a significant height and reach advantage and was only cutting approximately 10 pounds to make weight, but that Islam's grappling is at the top of the food chain and Islam is unlikely to pursue a striking game plan. Sterling noted Khabib told him he thought Sterling would do really well grappling with Islam, and that Sterling was one of the only people able to escape certain positions multiple times when grappling with Khabib.

Sterling described his training philosophy as building chained responses into a system rather than logging undirected sparring time, with sparring conducted at around 70 percent intensity so techniques can be worked in real time without injuring partners. He credited the concept of guided discovery to his time as a physical education major at SUNY Cortland and attributed GSP's use of feints to Firas Zahabi operating with an intelligent structured system. Sterling said training with Marab Dvalishvili is irreplaceable because of the constant chaos and nervous system challenges Marab presents.

Sterling, who is 37 years old, said he is taking his career one fight at a time and would ideally fight for the title next given his record as a former bantamweight champion who has never turned down a fight offer. He said he could see himself competing as a world champion at 45 if he stays healthy, and that a fight with Alexander Volkanovski, if Volkanovski wins a title, would make sense as a matchup between two veterans of their respective weight classes. He also noted he plays five chess games daily and rates himself between 1350 and 1420 Elo, having started during COVID after watching The Queen's Gambit.