If he manages to beat Petr Yan at UFC 267, Cory Sandhagen is looking forward to running it back with Aljamain Sterling in a title unification bout. Sandhagen also revealed that he'd like a rematch with TJ Dillashaw down the line. Cory admitted he wants to avenge his loss to 'Funkmaster' a bit more in comparison.
According to Sandhagen, he landed a number of significant strikes on Dillashaw during their encounter earlier this year. He went the distance with the former champ and lost the fight via split decision. The fight with Sterling, however, went very differently.
Sandhagen failed to get any kind of offense going in the fight and got submitted just over a minute into the very first round. In a recent interaction with TMZ, Cory Sandhagen explained why the loss to Sterling was such a hard pill to swallow:
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"Yeah, the Sterling one definitely irks me a little bit more. With Dillashaw, at least I got to beat him up. The decision didn't go my way or whatever but TJ definitely walked out of the cage way more beat up than I walked out of the cage. So a little bit easier pill to swallow. Nah man the Sterling one irks me bad just because it couldn't go any worse," Cory Sandhagen said.
Check out Cory Sandhagen's interview with TMZ below:
While Cory Sandhagen looks forward to avenging his loss to Sterling, he must first get past former champion Petr Yan at UFC 267. The stakes are very high for this one because the winner will be declared the interim bantamweight champion.
Victory over Petr Yan would establish him as the true champion in the bantamweight division, claims Cory Sandhagen
Although Yan isn't the champion, Sandhagen claims 'No Mercy' is the man to beat in the bantamweight division right now. If he manages to beat Yan, Sandhagen believes he should be regarded as the true champion despite Sterling holding the title:
"I think Petr Yan is probably the best guy in the division. To me it would mean beating the best guy in the division and becoming the champ," Sandhagen said.