Top 60 Aljamain Sterling Quotes

I’m a lot bigger than Faber, I’m pretty sure I’m a lot stronger than Faber and I’m pretty sure I’m a lot faster than Faber.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of being paid like NBA, NFL and soccer and baseball athletes. They have that cushion where they can kind of hang out. Even the guys on the bench. But for us, we don’t fight, we don’t get paid and that’s the scary reality to it all.

I’m a hard guy to hit and take down, and once I get you on the ground I’m going to choke you out. Even if you resist a few of the other attempts I’m going to get you one way or the other. I’m like the Boogeyman… I’m gonna get you.

I’ve had negative experiences with cops. I’ve had positive experiences with cops.

I hope we can figure out the reforms, educate and really retrain our police officers. Getting people to understand that just because I grew up a different way and my lifestyle‘s different, doesn’t mean that you need to be afraid of me.

I’m like, ‘Man, if I’m going to have this idle time, I might as well be in school, do something positive where I’m not just wasting my prime years and not getting something else in return.’ If I’m in school and training, that’s OK. I did that in college. It worked.

When you look at the U.S., it’s a little weird, man because we have so many other sports and other things that we can watch and support that it’s hard to get the support of an entire country around you.

I almost want to ask the judges, ‘If you don’t count leg kicks, if you don’t count body kicks, why not?’ So if you don’t think they’re effective in the scoring criteria, they’re not effective striking, effective grappling, so how about I kick you in the body, I kick you in the leg, and you tell me how that feels?

I think I bring a different flavor to the game, both inside and outside the Octagon.

I would never want to sell a fight based on stuff about race. That’s not the type of person that I am. I would never go that route to push a fight.

You only get 15 minutes to work and show your art and everything can you do. At the end of the day, it’s a fight.

As history has shown, I don’t think the UFC is in the business of doing favors for other people.

People can forget about you so quickly and that’s not what I want. I want to keep people talking because at the end of the day that’s what is going to get you paid. People have to want to care to watch you fight and you have to be relevant.

If I’m only fighting once or twice a year, that’s just not going to be enough to make a dent in the sport or enough financially for me to get myself to where I want to be and position myself.

At the end of the day, I know I’m not Superman.

I want to exit from this sport with my head intact.

We’re all fighting for a reason. We’re not fighting to just fight. There’s got to be some type of reward at the end of the rainbow and that reward is a big, shiny, UFC gold belt. That changes every fighter‘s life dramatically for the better.

You can’t keep a star from shining and my star’s going to shine bright.

I think flyweight has always been exciting.

I’ve got personality. And I can actually fight. I think that combination alone sells.

Petr Yan’s a tough dude.

I know some people count me out, but that’s the one thing about myself, I never count myself out.

Obviously, I rep Jamaica. I’m a first generation born Jamaican-American. My parents are born and raised in Jamaica, my grandparents are born and raised in Jamaica, my other family still lives in Jamaica, and I still go back there.

I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge and I’ve never been one to shay away from talking a big game.

It’s the fight game. I’m ready for everything.

At the end of the day, Cejudo’s a tough competitor but I think he’s a flyweight.

A lot of guys think you’re almost supposed to just get stuff but you’ve got to put in the work, you’ve got to lay the foundations.

You cant really put a value on the UFC name. That alone has value in itself.

There’s a lot of American citizens out there that do jobs that they hate, day in and day out. For me to do what I love to do, with people that I like and enjoy being around who are chasing the same dream, same passions, to have that around you day in and day out, I think it says a lot.

To be in the UFC and have the name but not the earnings, good for you, you get a hand clasp and a shake and a don’t let the door hit you on the way out sort of thing.

I fight for people’s entertainment, but at the same time that entertainment comes at a cost.

At the end of the day, when you get a sponsor, it’s a working relationship. So anyone I get involved with, I want it to be a working relationship where I’m generally trying to help them and they’re generally trying to help me.

My comfortability is always going favor the grappling side, that’s the path of least resistance. But, I don’t need necessarily need to force the takedowns like I used to before.

If you don’t know what the hell the martial arts are, why are you a judge?

I bring the funk. It’s a different style.

I’m in this sport to change my life. I’m in this sport to change my parents’ lives and the loved ones around me. That’s really what I care about. And I can’t do that if they keep putting me on these prelims.

If you don’t stick out then how do you expect to be remembered? I want to be one of those guys who is actually remembered.

A lot of guys man, they are dull and dry.

If we’re just going to have contenders fighting just to fight, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then I might as well just start jumping around divisions too because there’s a lot of fun fights for myself in other divisions that I think I would love to entertain.

Even when I teach my MMA classes in the gym, it’s hard to teach what I do. It’s more of state of flow, a state of feel. It’s not a robotic thing like one, two, three, kick, one, two, three, switch, jab, cross. It’s completely unorthodox. Everything is about rhythm, tempo and pace. It’s a different style, man.

MMA is not one of those up and down basketball seasons where you have a ton of games and you can still make the playoffs. It doesn’t work like that in MMA. You get a couple losses, you get washed up, you get the door slammed behind you and they bring in the next person behind you who is here to take your place.

I think they need to start doing cageside weigh-ins again. I think that’s the best way to go if you really want to see some difference. Cageside weigh-ins; I guarantee you won‘t see people cutting more than five to eight pounds, and they’ll be fighting closer to their natural weight class.

You don’t have to get into, ‘I’m a leftist or a rightist, I’m Democrat or Republican.’ You don’t have to get into that kind of nitty gritty type of detail, but at the same time to show that you do have a stance is very, very important. To preach the good word of just being a good human being, being a humanitarian.

I’m always a guy that looks at every situation as glass half full.

About this sport, you gotta kind of stay active. If you’re not active, you’re easily forgotten. It’s like out of sight, out of mind.

Do you think the UFC is going to owe you a favor when you step up on short notice when nobody else is doing it? There’s a reason a whole bunch of us aren’t doing it. If you want to be that scapegoat, and think that the UFC’s going to owe you one, good luck with that. Let me know how that goes.

It’s all about brand exposure, building your brand, building your image and just getting to that next level as an athlete.

I don’t want to be resentful to the sport. I want to be able to leave the sport on a high note.

You put me in there with anybody at ’35 or ’45, I get on your back, I take you down, it’s going to be a long night and it’s a dangerous situation to be in.

I mean, I’ve had fights with random guys, I drove to fights by myself cutting weight, no corners whatsoever. So I’ve had a very interesting MMA journey.

I’m too long, I’m too rangy, I can box, I can kick, I can wrestle, I can do jiu-jitsu.

Just like any other job, you want a raise you’ve got to put in the work and you’ve got to show that you’re deserving and what you bring to the table and all kinds of other stuff to show that you’re worthy of so and so pay scale.

You just take your hits on the chin and move on, that’s life.

You might be an elite-level athlete in the room, but if no one gets to see you display your craft it doesn’t matter.

I had to learn to toughen up and fend for myself. You’d think when you have a lot of brothers and sisters, they’d come to your aid and rescue you a lot of times, but for us it wasn’t really like that. It was tough love.

I’ve been the captain of my wrestling team, my college team, so to me, I’ve been in that leadership role for a very long time.

It’s interesting to see all these guys keep calling me out after they win. I don’t know whether it’s a slap in the face or just respect. I don’t know. I have no idea. I can’t tell what to make of it.

I like to put my money where my mouth is and go out there and perform and do what I gotta do.

You change the mind and world of one individual and that’s huge, man. You reach one person and that starts a spiral effect and starts to snowball. I think that’s the one thing as an athlete we should all focus on doing and that’s striving to give back in a positive manner.

If you’re a top 10 guy you should pay a top 10 guy or even a top 5 guy what he deserves, whether it’s a lightweight or a heavyweight.