Aljamain Sterling and TJ Dillashaw will have their title defense a month later.
Sterling and Dillashaw were targeted to fight on September 10 at UFC 279, however, after the UFC made Nate Diaz vs. Khamzat Chimaev for that event, the promotion moved the bantamweight title fight. According to Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports, Sterling vs. Dillashaw will now serve as the co-main event of UFC 280 on October 22 in Abu Dhabi. The main event of the card will see Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev for the vacant lightweight title.
It also isn’t a huge surprise that the fight is not taking place at UFC 279, as Sterling hinted at that being the case. He said he wanted more money and hadn’t signed the contract to face Dillashaw on September 10.
“There’s no fight until there’s ink on paper, and as of right now, my contract is exactly the same. Usually, when it’s not a title fight when you win a fight, there is an escalator (of pay),” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “There has been no escalator in this fight. I’d like to think I played my part, did the right things, and even allowed myself to be the bad guy in the last outing with Petr Yan, and help play up the storyline. So one would think that being a company man would actually help you in the long run. So I did my job, as of right now, I’m training, hoping that we come to some type of agreement to give some type of pay bump which naturally happens in all the contracts.
“I want to make sure we get the deal right before we just jump into another fight, because at the end of the day, I climbed through the ranks, I worked my ass off, and I played my position in terms of helping to promote the fights, which a lot of these guys don’t even do,” Sterling continued. “I’m here to be a company man, and at the same time, I want to look out for my best interests. There’s a fine line where there’s a balance where getting both of those done can happen. Hopefully, we can sit down and figure this out.”
Aljamain Sterling (21-3) is coming off back-to-back wins over Petr Yan to win and defend his title. To win the belt, he won by DQ due to an illegal knee and in the rematch, he earned a split decision victory. ‘Funkmaster’ is on a seven-fight win streak with notable wins over Cory Sandhagen, Pedro Munhoz, and Cody Stamann among others.
TJ Dillashaw (17-4) beat Sandhagen by split decision last time out in his return to the sport after his USADA suspension. Prior to the suspension, he suffered a TKO loss to Henry Cejudo for the flyweight belt as he dropped down to try and become a champ-champ. Dillashaw is the former UFC bantamweight champion and will look to reclaim his title against Sterling.
Who do you think will win, Aljamain Sterling or TJ Dillashaw?