Marlon Vera questions UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling’s heart.
Sterling (21-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) silenced plenty of doubters when he defeated Petr Yan for a second time at UFC 273 by dominating him on the ground, but it appears Vera is still not sold on the champion.
“Chito” doesn’t think Sterling has the necessary fight in him to battle through adversity.
“Aljamain is a great athlete, but he’s not a fighter,” Vera told Brendan Schaub on “Food Truck Diaries.” “I bet my house he’s not a fighter. If sh*t goes sideways, he will give up.”
He continued, “Aljamain has shown in the past – he did it with Assuncao, he did it with Bryan Caraway – if things go south for him, he’s like, ‘Yeah, you can take it. I can live another day.’ Which other guys like T.J. (Dillashaw) or myself, I’m like, ‘F*ck you, I’m dying right now. You kill me right now because I’m not going home like a little b*tch.’ Aljamain is a great athlete with great wrestling.”
Sterling is expected to face ex-champ T.J. Dillashaw next, and with Dillashaw’s decorated wrestling background, Vera doesn’t see him getting controlled on the ground like Yan.
“I believe T.J. has the wrestling to stop the takedowns and in the standup he’ll have to fight. It all comes down to how healthy T.J. is,” Vera said. “He’s coming off a heavy injury, and you’re not getting younger. So all that, we just don’t know. He knows how he feels about that, and Aljamain is a little younger, so maybe that can help him.”
Vera is edging closer to a title shot after scoring two big wins over Frankie Edgar and Rob Font. If he could pick who to fight between Sterling and Dillashaw, Vera would choose Sterling, simply because he rubs him the wrong way.
“I personally don’t like Aljo, so I would like to kick his ass,” Vera said. “I don’t like his personality. He’s a little b*tchy, he’s a little diva, so I just don’t like the guy.”
He continued, “This comes years ago when he fought Bryan Caraway. He started crying like a little b*tch. ‘Oh, I don’t get promoted,’ this and that. I was like, ‘OK bro, you want to get cameras on your face?’ They promote it. He went and lose like a little b*tch against Caraway.”
Marlon Vera: UFC champ Aljamain Sterling ‘a great athlete, but he’s not a fighter’
