"They gave it to the popularity contest of Yan and Aldo" - Aljamain Sterling claims his clash with Cory Sandhagen should have been title fight 

Aljamain Sterling believes he and Cory Sandhagen should've fought for the vacant bantamweight championship at UFC 250.

Prior to their encounter, Sterling had beaten Pedro Munhoz while Sandhagen had defeated Raphael Assuncao. However, once Henry Cejudo vacated the title, the UFC set up a fight between Jose Aldo and Petr Yan for the belt, even though Aldo had lost his first fight at bantamweight to Marlon Moraes.

In a clip posted to his YouTube channel, Sterling claimed that the UFC overlooked him and Sandhagen in favor of a popularity contest between Yan and Aldo:

"Technically Sandhagen and I, with both highly credible wins, should have been fighting for the vacant title anyway. And they gave it to the popularity contest of Yan and Aldo. So technically, we should have been fighting for the belt. And I should have technically been the champion and even the fans before they turned their back, the fake ones. Even the fans were saying that was the real title fight."

Check out the clip from Aljamain Sterling's YouTube channel below:

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Aljamain Sterling believes his bout with Petr Yan was close if 'free takedowns' were removed from the equation

Aljamain Sterling claims his clash with Petr Yan at UFC 259 would have been a lot more competitive if he hadn't slipped and handed 'No Mercy' seven free takedowns.

Sterling won the fight in the fourth round after Yan was disqualified for landing an illegal knee on a downed opponent. Even though 'The Funk Master' was awarded the bantamweight title, several voices in MMA have been dismissive of him as a champion due to the nature of his win.

During a recent episode of The Weekly Scrap Podcast, Sterling said:

"The mindset then was if I could just scum this man for three rounds and stall for 10 minutes, I win the fight and I'm champion. My goal was... to stifle this guy just making it a boring fight. Obviously, it was an exciting fight because of how crazy it was. You watch the fight, you interpret it how you want to interpret it. But you take away the slips, the free seven slip takedowns that I gave him by doing the slowest spins in the world. It's mind blowing. You take away those. How close is that fight in terms of just striking output and cage control? Like I was in the fight regardless of what people want to say."

Check out Aljamain Sterling's chat with friend Henoc Maurice below:

Aljamain Sterling pulled out of a rematch against Petr Yan at UFC 267. He recently revealed that he's expecting to return to the octagon in February or March.