Aljamain Sterling on Coming Back and Retaining the Title After a Neck Injury

Undisputed. The undisputed champ, ladies and gentlemen. It feels amazing. God, how good does that feel for you? Oh, top of the world, liberating. After all that shit you had to take from people for so long, how many months was it? 13 months before I can get back in there. 13 months of people talking shit. Yeah. It's a long time. It's a long time. But how sweet must it have been when they raised your hand and you got the W and still? It was kind of a mind fuck a little bit because it was a split decision, which I was like, wait. I mean, going back now, I could see why people were saying that. But in my head, I thought I had that thing locked up, easy, dead to rights. And I was really confident going into the scorecards. And then when that happened, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. They're really trying to take this away from me. After 13 months, I worked this hard. But you got it. Yeah, that was a weird split decision. I mean, it was a very good fight, but you definitely won the fight. I watched it again today, actually. I've watched it one time with people. Normally after the fight, I usually watch it that night. And I usually watch it a couple of times. And I analyze it. And I break it down, take notes, wins losses. Because that's how you grow. But for this one, I just wanted a break and just get away from the sport a little bit. And it's kind of decompressed. Because like I said, man, 13 months is a long time to just have people just chirping at you. You can't physically do anything because you're healing. So I was just really happy that I got it done. But now I need to go back and start to get back on that horse a little bit to get ready for the next one. Yeah, go back and watch it. You're going to appreciate it. It's a great fight. It's a very good fight. But you're just different. You're so much different than the first fight. Which for someone who's had neck injuries myself, I was wanting to ask you, was your neck fucked up before the first fight? So going into the fight, it was fucked up. So just to give a storyline, college wrestling, freshman year, me and this guy talking shit to each other. We call each other out. He's up a weight class for me. But last year, he wrestled the same weight class as me. I'm very competitive. That kid was competitive. We're both from New York. So we go after him. He slams me, spikes me on my head. His name is Dave. Spiked me on my head. I had stingers. So anytime I would turn my head, I would find a radiant pain from the crown of my head all the way down to somewhere around that C disc. Like right around that area. And then each year, it got progressively worse. That got better. But each year after that, wrestling, pulling on the head, we do hand fighting drills where we put our hands behind our back. And you gotta keep your head up in a wrestling position. And so one of your partners is pulling on your neck and yanking it, yanking it. So that didn't help. Jiu-jitsu didn't help. All these other things. So over the years, it got progressively worse. I have MRIs dating back from, I think 2014 when I had my UFC debut. And every time it was about my neck. Almost every single fight I had an MRI about my neck because I kept thinking, okay, this is the time I'm gonna have to get it fixed. This is the time. And we were able to just let it heal, do PT. And then before the first Yarn fight, when he pulled out, I was contemplating on pulling out because my neck had a really bad flare up and I thought I wasn't gonna make it to the fight. And thankfully he pulled out, gave me some time to do some PT at the UFC PI. That helped out a ton, everyone over there. And then I got a shot. But the funny part about the shot, the quarter zone shot, they put it in the wrong spot. But the doctor said, oh yeah, but you'll still get the effects. He put it like a disc level too high. So C67 was mine. He put it in the C5, C6, he said. I'm like, well, it's not the end of the world, but I did feel some relief. But then I go through training. I'm rolling with this guy at 10th Planet. And I'm in Vegas. And this is a guy I'd never trained with before. He jumps on my neck in a guillotine, cranks my neck on a flow roll to warm up. It's the very second flow roll right before the fight again. I think about three weeks before the fight. And as soon as he did that and the roll was done, I go to him and was like, I know the rest of this week is shot and I'm probably gonna be out for a couple of days because of this. And that's exactly what happened. And we had the fight, whatever. After the knee, I started having some atrophy because now they're rushing me to get back. Because I texted Dana when I was in the hospital. When you say after the knee, tell everybody. So illegally we need to the head. From the first fight in March 6, 2021, that night we went to the hospital. And I texted Dana White. And I told him, I want to have the rematch and get this done and settled the right way, as soon as we can kind of thing. They were all for me to fight, I think like two months, what was it, March, April, May. And I was like, dude, if I was suspended, if that was a legal shot, I would have been suspended. There's no way I could fight in May. If it was a legal fight ending sequence, I would not even be clear to compete. Did you get concussed from that? Oh, 100%. So my analysts out there, my doctors that know what a concussion is, they know all the symptoms, they know what a concussion is, I threw up later that night. They thought I was drinking. I was like, I didn't drink. My friends were there. They came to see me. So they all spent a ton of money, come out buying tickets for the fight, for the flight. And some of them even gathered at the house that couldn't pay for the tickets to get out. So I had about 30 something people at the house. And here I come back from the hospital. And I still don't remember much of the night. I had to get people to kind of help me recall what actually happened. And when we're at the house, I kind of want to just go to bed. But then at the same time, I felt bad because everyone spent so much money to come see me. These are friends from college, from high school, middle school. So at that point, I'm kind of like, well, I can't just be mopey. And I have these guys trying to lift me up. Hey, guy, you made it here. One of the hardest things to do is to get to the top, to even earn a title shot. Everything you had to do just to get the title shot, you finally got it. This is not the way you want to win, but you get an opportunity to do it again. I had to keep it in perspective and they helped me do that. And they just, they wanted me to have a toast. So I had a toast with my friends and family. And people took that. And I never posted anything. But people took that because my friends were posting stuff because they were excited. I mean, I can understand why, but me, I'm not very excited. As an athlete, no one wants to win like that. So it's not a very exciting moment. But I did understand that this was special to have people that cared about you and have been following my career for so long to come out and want to hang out. So for that moment, for me, it was just really cool just to take that moment in with them. Like, hey, man, like after this, I got to kind of get back to work. And we had a toast. I said a couple of words. We'll do it again, blah, blah, blah. And they said to the champion, whatever, there was videos out. Then it looked like I was faking. I'm like, guys, I didn't know there was a protocol. How you're supposed to react after being illegally need to end the head from a shot you don't even see. While you're exhausted in a high stakes fight, I didn't know there was a certain way you're supposed to act. I'm like, was I supposed to pretend like I was being macho? Like, I'm just trying to gather myself. But after that knee, I tried to get back into the gym like a week later. I started to hit the bag to try to see if I can make may happen. But I told my manager that's probably not going to be a go. They asked for June. That would have been the Brandon Moreno fight, I think. They had that rematch. And that would have been cool, but I couldn't do pushups. I hit the bag. I was getting radiating pain down my arm. And I couldn't do pull ups, push ups, bag work, all that stuff. So this disc that you had, was it bulging at this point, or had it deteriorated to the point where it's bone on bone? Where were you at? So that's a good question. I never really asked. I was having pressing from, I guess, herniation is when it's like spilling out. So it was press. Is that what it is? Yes. Herniating? Yeah, so I guess that would be the proper term. So it was spilling out into the spinal column and pushing on the nerve. And they said if it doesn't unblock within two to four weeks, that muscle could just end up just being, like I could just lose muscle. That's Boss Rutan. Have you ever seen Boss Rutan's arm? I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it. It's crazy. He has one arm he calls baby arm. Because it's so atrophied. He has nothing there. His other arm's jacked. And he's got his right arm. He goes, I can't even hold a gallon of milk out. It's crazy. And people don't understand how severe of a thing that really is. It's been years and years and years for him. And it still hasn't grown bad. Exactly. So that could have been me. That could have been you for real. Yeah, try to be tough and say, you know, I'm just going to go fight. And they looked at it again. And surgery was the option. I was so afraid to do the surgery, though. Because I just wasn't sure how that was going to happen. So let's explain the surgery. You have an artificial disc. Disc replacement, yeah. Yeah. And Weidman had the same thing, right? So he did like a dissectomy. He never had an artificial disc? No, he does. But the first one he did was a dissectomy, I think, where they just clean it out. Yeah. And then I guess that didn't do too well. And then they went in and actually took it out and replaced it. So we're like blood brothers. So when he had his disc, you at least had a friend that was a training partner. You knew well. And you got a chance to ask him what the recovery was like. And how was he doing? Is he good to go with that now? Or is he having issues? Well, he fought after. I mean, he fought Uriah Hall. I mean, obviously, that was crazy. But he's trained after that. I think he actually fought even other fights after that as well, if I'm not mistaken. I think he had a couple fights. I think he had a couple fights. But he said it doesn't bother him. Same thing with me. You could barely even see my scar. And so your neck feels just like a normal neck now? It's weird. So I hit the doctor up, Dr. Robert Watkins Jr. He's the man, super cool, super accessible, and really checks up on his patients, which not a lot of people do that. And thank God he was the guy who did the hand of the procedure, because I think he did a phenomenal job from what I know. And just being very hands-on with me, he did a good job walking me through the process. When I'm asking about my recovery from a neurological standpoint, when I'm trying to get back into training and I'm not feeling the muscle endurance, and I still feel like I'm slowing down. And he did a good job walking me through everything, just saying, hey, man, it just takes time to stay with the stuff and the protocol as long as you're not having any pain kind of thing. So when you're saying muscle endurance, your neck was fatiguing? Is that what you're saying? Just about everything. Everything. Like, physically, I looked good. All the neurological things, like the wiring, since they severed the nerves, I guess, it just took a while. They severed your nerves? Well, I mean, I would imagine when you cut the neck, there's probably nerve endings in there. They don't cut your nerves. Well, I think the nerves move out of the way or something like that. Yeah, they push them out of the way. Yeah. But when they do cut in, something happens there mechanically, where you have to get everything back to working the way that it was before. Do you have an image of what it looks like now, like an MRI or an x-ray or something like that, where we could see the fake disc? That always freaks me out. I might have something on my IG. Eddie Bravo's got one of those in his lower back. He's got a fake one. I know a lot of guys that have him now. It's one of the things that we were talking about, people that have issues over time and get surgeries over time from Jiu-Jitsu. It was like, everybody has something eventually. But a lot of guys are getting disc replacements. Yeah. I do have a picture posted. I mean, it might take me a while to find it, because I don't have one on Instagram. Yeah. You'll find it. But yeah, man, it was just a crazy process, just to get back. And after the knee, didn't I do the surgery? And I was afraid to do it, because I just wasn't sure what I was going to look like. Because there was only three people who have done it. Alan Jobin, he was very great with me as well. Oh, Alan did too? Yeah. And I think we actually had the same doctor. And I asked him about it, and we got to talk. And that was cool that he got to express everything and kind of similar feelings for the two of us. So that was amazing to talk to him, talk to Wyman. I talked to Wyman's doctor, but I almost felt like the guy didn't really, you know, I'm not trying to offend anybody. But it just felt like he didn't really, I don't want to say care, but it didn't seem like he was really, I feel like I was just another number to him kind of thing. That happens with a lot of doctors. Yeah. So I think that's the most PC way to put it. That's kind of a bummer. Yeah. When doctors start thinking people are just like numbers. Like, this is my neck we're talking about. No, right? I'm like, and I'm not just a regular, I mean, I am a regular guy, but not just a, I don't do a regular job. Fuck regular guys. You're the fucking bantamweight champion of the world. And your job is crazy as fuck. Oh, there it is. Wow. So that's an articulating disc. So that disc allows your neck to move as freely as if you had the regular disc tissue in there. Yeah. And you don't, do you feel anything in there? So that's what I was, oh yeah, that's what I was going to say. So I hit the doctor up, Dr. Watkins, and I go, is it weird that it feel like sometimes I need to oil my neck like a car? Because it feels like the joint, it gets dry. Because I can hear it go, cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck. Sometimes, not all the time. Got my Shake Shack. Is that right after you had it done? Yeah. Wow. Got Shake Shack after I needed that. Go back to the other picture, Jamie. Shake Shack needs to step their shit up though, man. They do? Yeah. What's the matter? Just the service sometimes is, yeah. But they'd make a damn good milkshake. So I'm OK with it. That is wild, looking at that neck thing.