Aljamain Sterling has a rather confusing answer to why he will not fight at UFC 308
Aljamain Sterling recently responded to a fan online who asked him if competing on UFC 308 was a possibility. Sterling was initially slated to fight at UFC 307 against Movsar Evloev before an injury sustained to the former scrapped that planned bout.
The former UFC bantamweight champion has come out to say that the injury is not so severe it will require surgery and hopes this battle between ranked featherweights can get re-scheduled sooner rather than later.
After Sterling took to X talking about it being a weird freak injury and feeling for Evloev losing out on this fight, a fan asked him if he could get re-booked to fight as soon as a few weeks after UFC 307.
UFC 308 goes down on October 26 while UFC 307 transpires on October 5 with X user @TIGER_IRAQ1 asking Sterling about if this is re-scheduling is possible with the fan hoping that this can happen. Sterling retweeted his response to the inquisitive fan by succinctly stating,
"I can't fight in New York"
UFC 308 will be transpiring in Abu Dhabi but it's likely Sterling was thinking of UFC 309 which takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Check the UFC 308 related social media interaction with Aljamain Sterling below:
Aljamain Sterling and past instances of fights falling out due to injury
Aljamain Sterling is no longer included in the pay-per-view proceedings for UFC 307 but this is not the first time an injury scrapped a planned fight for him.
The 35-year-old had a contest at UFC Fight Night 54 a decade ago in October 2014 fall out after getting hurt. The planned bout was against Mitch Gagnon and it wouldn't be until April 2015 that Sterling would be able to return to the octagon.
Sterling would also fall out of a planned bout versus Raphael Assuncao from years back. This was initially planned for UFC Fight Night 102 for December 2016. The bout would get rescheduled for not long after that which spoke to the severity of Funk Master's injury at the time and seems to bear resemblances to his situaiton nowadays.
Raphael Assuncao and Aljamain Sterling would later go down in January 2017 with the former winning via split decision.
The New York native also had a sequel clash with Petr Yan fall out for UFC 267. A neck injury caused that October 2021 fight to fall out, with the Yan rematch for the UFC bantamweight belt eventually being booked for UFC 273 in April 2022.