Aljamain Sterling has been forced out of his upcoming fight against Movsar Evloev at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City on Oct. 5 after suffering an injury in training.
The former bantamweight champion, who is now competing at 145 pounds, revealed the news in a video posted to his YouTube channel on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, I have to break the news I will not be competing in Salt Lake City at UFC 307,” Sterling said. “In sparring, I had an injury not requiring surgery, but I was advised by the UFC medical staff that I will not be able to properly compete in this short of a turnaround.
“I did the stem cells. I took time off. I tried to rehab it as much as I can, as best as I can with the [UFC Performance Institute] team here, and unfortunately, it’s out of my hands now. I apologize to Movsar and his team. We’ve been talking and I was really looking forward to punching this guy in his face.”
Sources confirmed to MMA Fighting that Sterling suffered an elbow injury that won’t require him to have surgery, but he wasn’t responding to treatment enough to risk fighting in October.
While it’s expected that Sterling could return before the end of the year, there’s no chance he would be able to fight at UFC 307.
As of now, the UFC hasn’t rebooked Evloev against a different opponent but Sterling hopes the fight could just be pushed back to a later date, although he won’t fault the undefeated Russian for moving on after their matchup was cancelled.
“Movsar, if you still really want to punch this handsome face, I put the challenge out to you to push the fight back and wait,” Sterling said. “Wait for daddy. I will be back soon. Possibly do this in December. That’s pretty much all I got.
“If you decide not to wait, I can respect that also because you’re trying to fight for a belt, as am I. The only way to do that is to go through each other.”
It’s an unfortunate loss for the UFC 307 card but obviously worse for Sterling after he hoped to beat Evloev and then position himself for a chance to potentially fight for the featherweight title. Now he’ll have to wait and see what the UFC decides regarding his next fight.
As for UFC 307, the card still moves forward with a pair of title fights at the top of the bill with Alex Pereira defending his light heavyweight championship against Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event while Raquel Pennington puts her bantamweight belt up for grabs facing former champion Julianna Pena.
