Aljamain Sterling, inspired by Jon Jones‘ success despite his unconventional training habits, began his MMA career training with Jones in college and has since developed a more balanced approach to his own fight preparations.
Aljamain Sterling began his MMA journey alongside Jon Jones and was astounded by the success of the now-UFC heavyweight champion. They attended college together before Sterling transferred to a different school.
After scrolling through old social media, “Funkmaster” saw Jones training in mixed martial arts. Curious, he wondered how he could get involved. Not only did Sterling train with Jones, but he also partied with him. He was shocked to see Jones partying close to his fights — and still winning convincingly.
“Suspect No. 1, and I got to see this first hand, was Jon Jones,” Sterling told Demetrious Johnson. “When we were in college together, and he was in the UFC, and I was still at school at Courtland… some way, somehow, I messaged him on MySpace, and he’s training right down the f*cking block from my college.”
Sterling continued, “I hit him up like, ‘Yo, I see you doing the grappling stuff and the fighting, and I always thought it was cool. I think I could be good at this. Can I check it out? How do I check it out?’ He was like, ‘I’m training here,’ I was like, ‘Bro, I go to school right here.’ He was like, ‘Come down,’ so I came down and he was like… ‘Man, you’re not going to show up.’”
“I showed up the next day,” Sterling added, “and I haven’t stopped training since then.”
“But I would see this man, a week before his fight, him at the bar… going nuts,” said Sterling. “In my head, I was like, no sex, no drinking, no smoking. That’s what they said: don’t do it if you want to be a champion.”
Sterling recalled thinking about Tyson and Ali’s discipline. “And then that weekend he would just murder a guy on International TV,” he said. “I was like, ‘He’s doing something right.’”
Recently, Sterling moved up to featherweight after losing the 135-pound title to Sean O’Malley at UFC 292 in August 2023. In his first featherweight bout, Sterling dominated Calvin Kattar for a unanimous decision at UFC 300 in April.
He was supposed to face Movsar Evloev at UFC 307 next weekend. Unfortunately, an injury forced him to withdraw.
Seeing Jones’ success and learning about his own body over many years of high-level fighting helped Sterling find a more enjoyable system for training camps.
“I went from cold turkey to six weeks — nothing changed in my fights,” Sterling said. “[Then it was] four weeks, and then I got to two weeks and it was like, ‘It’s all mental, baby.’ Just put the damn work in, and you’re good.”