A biography for Aljamain Sterlinghasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“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 bring the funk. It's a different style.”
“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 think flyweight has always been exciting.”
“If you don't know what the hell the martial arts are, why are you a judge?”
“It's MMA, man, the wild, wild west. You can just expect that anything can happen, and that's just where I'm at with things.”
“I tell myself, 'You're too fast, you're too strong, you're too quick. You can't be broken, you can't be beat. If you can't be broken, you can't be beat.' And I just beat it into my head.”
“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 want to have a bank account that represents me being a pro athlete.”
“The mind has to be right and the work has to match the mind.”
“Every time you step in there with a guy who is not ranked where you're at, it's always a big stepping stone for them - if they're able to get the job done.”
“I like to think I defied the odds my entire life, definitely my entire athletic career.”
“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.”
“It's all about brand exposure, building your brand, building your image and just getting to that next level as an athlete.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do to win, so I don't really get to play around as much.”
“People can say the media stuff drains you and everything, but you set everything up accordingly to the schedule.”
“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.”
“If you go into a negotiating room and are like, 'Well I was on the same card as Conor McGregor, so maybe I should get a little bit more money,' they'll probably just look at you like, 'What? In what universe does that even make sense?' So I don't see how anyone could possibly think it's going to be a trickle-down effect.”
“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.”