Aljamain Sterling reveals whether he plans to touch gloves with Petr Yan at UFC 273

Aljamain Sterling recently gave an unconventional reply when asked whether he will touch gloves with Petr Yan ahead of their rematch.

At UFC 273, Sterling will finally defend his UFC bantamweight title against Yan, over a year after they first fought for the strap at UFC 259. The contest was initially scheduled to go down at UFC 272 in March. It has since been pushed back to April.

Neither man can afford to lose such a high stakes fight after all the trash talk that has been exchanged between them. However, when push comes to shove, even the fiercest of rivals will sometimes show respect to one another before heading into battle.

According to Sterling, we shouldn't expect a traditional glove touch. He tweeted:

"I’ll give him some dap and pat his ass, and say “good luck papa"."

Touching gloves is traditionally used as a way to signal respect between two fighters when they're brought to the middle of the octagon by the referee. While most competitors touch gloves before a bout, fighters who share a heated rivalry often refrain from doing so.

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What happened in the first fight between Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan?

At UFC 259 last year, Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling locked horns with the UFC bantamweight title on the line.

Sterling came out like a house on fire in the first round and put an incredible pace on the then-champion. However, he wasn't able to maintain it. Yan took over in the next three rounds and was clearly en route to victory.

Then, a bizarre illegal knee from 'No Mercy' rendered Sterling unable to continue.

As a direct result of what happened, Sterling was awarded the victory via disqualification and also managed to secure the title - becoming the first fighter in UFC history to win the strap this way.