UFC Bantamweight Champion Cody Garbrandt and top contender Aljamain Sterling had a heated exchange on Twitter last week.
The champion made a perceived racial comment when he called Sterling “boy” and now the fighter wants to clear the air about the comments.
“I don’t like that guy,” Garbrandt said on The MMA Hour. “He got all mad because over a year ago I told him that he was overrated. So the guy starts running his mouth and I see a TMZ report that he said he was going to kill me. So I was like, ‘Oh you’re going to kill me?’ So I took a screen shot and I sent it to him in a DM and he acted like a little bitch and that’s what he is. I should have called him a little bitch, not ‘boy’, I didn’t know that it was politically incorrect. I got a shirt that says ‘Hanging with the boys’, I call everybody ‘boy’. You know, ‘what’s up, boy’, I didn’t know that it was politically incorrect. I am not in the least bit racist. I have a sister that’s married to a black guy. I have a niece that is a mixed (race) child.”
Despite the heated exchange, it if former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw who is getting the next title shot at UFC 217 instead of Sterling.
Even though Garbrandt and Dillashaw aren’t fighting next, the bantamweight champion does have some opponents he would like to see Sterling fight.
“That’s free money. Both those dudes (Aljamain Sterling and Jimmie Rivera) are free money for me. After TJ, and Dominick has come back out of retirement, whatever he wants to do, that is all free money. I like free money. I like two checks. Dom, Demetrious…what the hell is his name…Oh…Jimmie, and that guy that wears the fake gold chain oh, Aljamain, yeah… all of those cats, that’s free money for me,” says Garbrandt.
UFC 217 takes place on Saturday, November 4 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York with Michael Bisping and Georges St. Pierre headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
