Aljamain Sterling wanted nothing more than to take the bantamweight title from Petr Yan at UFC 259.
Sterling got the result he was looking for but not in the fashion it happened, as he won by disqualification in the fourth round to become the bantamweight champion at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Yan was disqualified after blasting Sterling, who was on one knee, with an intentional foul via an illegal knee. Sterling fell to the canvas immediately and the referee stepped and told Yan to go back to his corner. You could tell by the look in Sterling's eyes that he had no idea where he was.
He laid on the mat as the ringside doctor took a look at him to see if he could continue. Sterling kept telling referee Mark Smith and the doctor and he was fine and he could continue even though there was no way it would be possible.
After a long conversation between Smith and the doctor, the fight was waved off. Sterling immediately went to one knee and started crying. When UFC president Dana White put the belt around Sterling, the new champion immediately took it off and threw it on the mat as a symbol of not wanting to win the belt in that fashion.
Two judges had Yan ahead on the scorecards, with the other having it for Sterling at the time the bout was stopped.
Sterling needed assistance to walk down the steps, but for some reason still conducted his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan.
"Not the way I wanted to win," Sterling told Rogan. "I just took the belt off. I was trying to continue. I was in bad shape. That would have been the ego taking over."