"He's gonna get Will Smith-ed" - Aljamain Sterling promises to maul Petr Yan at UFC 273

Aljamain Sterling has violent intentions for the upcoming rematch against Petr Yan at UFC 273. Sterling and Yan are set to collide in the co-main event of the pay-per-view event set to take place at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 9.

Confident about successfully defending the title on the night, Sterling said Yan is about to "get Will Smith-ed" inside the octagon on April 9, referring to the incident between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the recently concluded 94th Academy Awards.

According to the bantamweight champion, he'll "maul" the Russian with his aggressive grappling game and vowed not to allow Yan to get back to his feet once he's taken down. During an interview with TMZ Sports, 'Funkmaster' said:

"I'm going to just, when they lock that door, he's going to get Will Smith-ed, I can tell you that he's going to get Will Smith-ed and after that, it's going to be a lot worse than that what Will did to Chris Rock. It's going to be a beat down. This guy, he's tough, he's good, he can kind of grapple. People can look at the the stats from the last fight, those are all to me fake news... He's gonna feel pressure like he's never felt before and this time when I take him down he ain't getting up."

Watch Aljamain Sterling's interview below:

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Aljamain Sterling explains how frustrating it was for him to receive flak from fans for becoming champion via DQ

'Funkmaster' received a lot of flak from fans online after becoming champion via DQ owing to Yan's illegal knee to the head. While Sterling wanted to prove them wrong by fighting the Russian on a quick turnaround, those plans were laid to waste after the former underwent surgery to repair nerve damage in his neck.

Aljamain Sterling said it was frustrating for him to sit on the sidelines and not be able to do anything to change people's opinions about him. He compared the feeling to being a caged animal in a zoo. Now that he'll finally get the opportunity to prove that he deserves to be champion, 'Funkmaster' wants to make full use of it. He said:

"That's the most frustrating part of this whole thing, it's not being able to compete to shut these guys up. It's almost like being, my analogy is that animal locked up in a zoo. You could do all these things, poke at it and throw these things at it but it can't retaliate retaliate because it's locked up, it's chained up. So for me those chains come free April 9 and I get an opportunity to finally put my hands on this guy..."