Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling again raised questions about rival Petr Yan and performance-enhancing drugs, saying he “would not be surprised” if the interim champ was cheating. “For me, I look at him the same way I look at T.J.,” Sterling said Monday on The MMA Hour. “When you hear rumors, it is what it is. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I said that about T.J. [Dillashaw] years ago, and it comes out years later that I was right. “I’m not trying to put dirt on Yan’s name, but there’s a lot of guys in the UFC that I competed against, and I just wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing surprises me any more. You just learn how to become numb to it.” Yan’s manager, Daniel Rubenstein, declined comment on Sterling’s statement, which came as part of a rant about the UFC anti-doping program administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). The undisputed bantamweight UFC champ did not offer any more specific information of interim champ Yan’s guilt, noting only that his suspicions were renewed by the postponement of their title unifier’s move from March at UFC 272 to April at UFC 273. “Unless he’s on the extra supplements, I don’t know, that good old acai,” Sterling said. Yan has not failed any drug tests to date, but Sterling has accused the interim champ on multiple occasions of cheating. After one accusation on Twitter, Yan responded that the champ was “looking for another fake excuse.” Yan recently said his fight with Sterling was moved because the UFC “doesn’t want” a “fake champion to headline the event.” Sterling also criticized USADA’s handling of the 2019 case that stripped Dillashaw of the title and questioned whether their testing of foreign and domestic athletes is even-handed. “It wasn’t even USADA that caught T.J. – it was the New York athletic commission,” he said. “What are we paying USADA to do? Is this just a front to remove all liability, like say, ‘Hey man, this is a third party that we pay to test our guys, we have no accountability for this.’ Because I don’t get it.” “All these guys in these other countries, I don’t think they’re being tested as much as we’re being tested, and I do think, and people can tell me I’m crazy – I’ve watched Icarus, I’ve always had my suspicions about things,” Sterling added later. “This sport was founded on being prideful of, ‘Yeah, I’m jacked, I’m a monster.’ Look at the back in the days and see what people used to look like, the Sean Sherks, and I don’t want to disparage anyone’s name, but we kind of know who’s who. The Belforts – we know what’s up. “To try to tell me and convince me that people aren’t still doing stuff, USADA can’t catch T.J. Dillashaw, who’d actually been outed by Cody Garbrandt in a press conference, and USADA doesn’t think, ‘Huh, maybe we should look into this.’ Because Garbrandt said, ‘He was the one showing people at the gym how to do it.’ Nothing happened after that. But the athletic state [commision] of New York catches T.J. Dillashaw? So what are they doing?” Sterling also indicated USADA’s domestic testing left something to be desired. He said a USADA test this past week may have been his first in months and included blood testing he said was typically not required. A USADA spokesperson told MMA Fighting it was the anti-doping agency’s findings that triggered Dillashaw’s suspension and pointed to a website that tracks all testing conducted on UFC fighters. To Sterling, all of the alleged shortcomings amounted to a serious problem in the regulation of the sport, one that was letting cheating fighters get off easy. “You should do jail time for doing steroids or EPO or any type of sh*t like that in the UFC, in combat sports,” Sterling said. “You can literally rearrange someone’s career, their livelihood doing this contact sport. This is not like playing basketball. We’re not hitting a baseball into the crowd. We’re dealing with life-changing events when you step into the octagon. And people will say – the ones that are stupid – are going to say, ‘Well, no one put a gun to your head and told you to do this.’ What? How is that a logical comeback to justify those actions?” “We’re not Lance Armstrong,” he added later. “We’re not riding a bike. We’re in a freaking fistfight, and if you can be a little bit more aggressive, a little more on point, a little more dialed in, that’s a more dangerous person in my eyes. That sh*t should be jail time. That’s f*cked up, bro.” Sterling said he would continue to speak up about the situation because of the moral issues at the heart of performance-enhancing drug use in MMA. “I’m still going to make it known that you’re probably cheating,” he said. “Regardless, I’m still going to get in there with you and beat your ass.”

The Mixed Martial Arts Hour is back in your life! Below is a rundown of Wednesday’s show, which begins at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. GMT. 1 p.m. ET: UFC featherweight standout Ilia Topuria opens the show to break down his UFC 270 meeting with Charles Jourdain. 1:30 p.m. Xtreme Couture head coach Eric Nicksick joins us to talk about Saturday’s heavyweight title unifier between Francis Ngannou and Ciryl Gane. 2 p.m.: Former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley joins the show to update us on his next move in combat sports. 2:30 p.m.: GC and Helwani break down the best bets for UFC 270. 3 p.m.: I answer all your questions in the latest edition of On the Nose. 3:30 p.m.: UFC welterweight star Jorge Masvidal returns to the show to talk about his UFC 272 headliner against Colby Covington. For more episodes of The MMA Hour, subscribe on Spotify or iTunes.

Claudia Gadelha retired from MMA after winning 18 of 23 professional bouts in a span of 12 years. Claudia Gadelha may have decided to retire from mixed martial arts due to concussion-related symptoms, but she won’t be leaving the UFC entirely. The one-time UFC strawweight title contender has accepted a job in the UFC with a “gigantic” list of obligations, she told MMA Fighting, but one she’s mainly focused on is the development of young athletes in her native Brazil. Speaking on this week’s episode of Trocação Franca, Gadelha explained that her main goal now is to help her countrymen. “I’ll work with several talents,” Gadelha said. “But I want to work hard, the same way I worked as an athlete, to help [fighters] in Brazil develop and understand things in the sport that aren’t very clear — and how to use the UFC to their advantage, and not the other way around. “Many people think they are against us, that there’s an inner circle there, when the reality is the promotion wants you to develop. I’ll focus on this mission of showing people that, helping people, being at events and being always around to help with everything they need.” One of her goals for the future, Gadelha said, is to convince the UFC to open a Performance Institute in Brazil much like the one the promotion built in 2019 in Shanghai, China. The former fighter said she would “be the ambassador for the UFC Performance Institute” and “show Brazilians how to use the Institute and its professionals.” “I have big goals in the company. ‘Minotauro’ [Nogueira] and I will achieve a lot at UFC Brazil,” Gadelha said. “The first thing Dana [White] asked me when we had this meeting was, ‘Do you think we should open a PI in Brazil?’ I said yes, absolutely. With the level of talent and willpower we have in Brazil, if we develop the technique and the psychology, I’m sure it will change a lot the way Brazilian fighters are in the UFC. “To refine what’s already great, right? To give them physical therapy, sports medicine, supplements and psychology for athletes that have none of that, or have to spend their entire purse on that to develop. If we give all that to an athlete that already has willpower and drive and is there fighting to be one of the best, and change not only his life but his family’s life, I’m sure we’ll have great results. That’s my goal at UFC Brazil. I want to change that.” Another mission with her new UFC role, Gadelha said, is to work out a health and fitness program for the UFC staff and “help them get in shape, train jiu-jitsu, and do some boxing, so people that work in the UFC can understand more about the sport.” Even if 52-year-old UFC president Dana White is doing just fine. “Dana is in shape,” Gadelha said with a laugh. “If you’re a conditioning coach, you have to be in shape so your client is in shape too. If you’re a fight coach, you must know how to fight. If you’re a sports doctor, you have to live the lifestyle you teach your patient. And Dana lives that, right? Dana is in the fight business and he’s strong in his 50s, and I think the UFC crew has to do the same thing. To develop, train, understand about the sport, because that helps their relationship with athletes.” On that note, if White ever decides to take up Chatri Sityodtong’s challenge for a fight, Gadelha believes the UFC boss could beat the founder of ONE Championship. “I’d definitely be in the boss’ corner, and he has good boxing, right?” Gadelha said. “Dana trained boxing in the past and he’s in shape. I’d be in his corner and he’d definitely win this fight.”

Former UFC champion Jon Jones is expected to make his heavyweight debut in 2022. | Esther Lin, MMA Fighting Deiveson Figueiredo and Jon Jones recently began training with Henry Cejudo in Arizona, and the Brazilian ex-champ expects both to capture UFC gold in 2022. Ahead of his UFC 270 trilogy with 125-pound titleholder Brandon Moreno on Saturday in Anaheim, Calif., Figueiredo spoke highly of his relationship with Jones. He told Trocação Franca the former UFC light heavyweight king first asked for a picture as he left the gym. “I want you to climb on my back and give me a rear-naked choke,” Figueiredo said of Jones’ request. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Deiveson Figueiredo (@daico_deusdaguerra) “I couldn’t believe I was climbing his back,” Figueiredo laughed. “I looked like one of those little Louis Vuitton or Gucci backpacks on his back.” With Jones now at heavyweight and Figueiredo walking around almost 100 pounds lighter, a training session between them would be virtually impossible. But that doesn’t mean the Brazilian can’t learn from “Bones” in the gym. “I was training in one area and he was training in another,” Figueiredo said. “But every once in a while, I look at him to see his training. He’s so calm when he’s training. You can notice him doing the right moves even though he’s heavier now, he’s gigantic. He’s very calm, he doesn’t go like crazy for the knockout. He’s very strategic, too, and I think he’ll do well at heavyweight.” Figueiredo considers Jones the GOAT of MMA and envisions he’ll capture the UFC heavyweight championship later this year. UFC 270 features a title unification bout between champion Francis Ngannou and interim champion Ciryl Gane, and Figueiredo expects the latter to be Jones’ next foe. “I believe [Gane] will fight Ngannou [and will win at UFC 270],” Figueiredo said. “He’s loose and moves well. I believe him. If he does the right game, he can take the belt — and Jones will definitely take it from him because it’s a good match-up [for Jones].” “Jones is smart on the feet, and when you have heavy hands and can’t knock him out, they try to wrestle him,” he continued. “I don’t see that game in Ngannou. And I think every fighter that fights Ngannou, once you avoid his first strikes and he gets tired. … You do an annoying game in the early rounds, and [Ngannou] gets lost and loses the fight.”

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC Alexander Volkanovski doesn’t mind being called out. It comes with the territory when you’re a reigning UFC champion. He just wants the callouts to make sense. That’s why Volkanovski didn’t mind when featherweight contenders like Chan Sung Jung and Josh Emmett respectfully raised their hands to fight him after Max Holloway withdrew from UFC 272. They were just playing the game, and both were worthy names coming off recent wins. It’s also why the approaches taken by two men, in particular — Giga Chikadze and Yair Rodriguez — stuck out to Volkanovski for all the wrong reasons. Chikadze was eventually forced to eat his words after losing to Calvin Kattar at UFC Vegas 46. But Rodriguez’s attempt to sucker Volkanovski into a fight didn’t land any better. “One thing that surprises me and what annoys me is the way he acted about it, as if it was a no brainer that he should be the next in line, and then starts carrying on and swearing and saying, ‘Respectfully, f*ck you,’ and all this type of stuff,” Volkanovski said of Rodriguez on The MMA Hour. “I’m like, are you serious? OK, let’s remember. Look, let me bring you back. Let’s be real for a second. What? Over two years, you were pretty much running from Zabit [Magomedsharipov]? “I didn’t want to bring that up, but man, you put me here. So you’re running from Zabit, pulling out, you’re getting suspended by USADA. You’ve been a diva, and then the UFC had so much hassle to get [you booked into a fight]. Like, you could imagine? It was a bunch of chaos, so the UFC aren’t going to take that serious. And then let’s remember, he just lost. I don’t get it. Like, I just really, really don’t get it. You haven’t fought for how long? Then you’re coming off a loss, and then you get angry at me because I don’t sit there and call you out? Man, it just blows me away.” Volkanovski was ultimately slotted into an impromptu title defense against Jung for April 9 at UFC 273, but not before Rodriguez escalated their one-sided war of words. The 29-year-old accused Volkanovski of picking and choosing his opponents, and told the champion that he had “shown more heart in a single fight” than Volkanovski had in all of his own. Rodriguez was likely referring to his November 2021 war against Holloway, which he lost via unanimous decision. The fight ended a more than two-year layoff for Rodriguez, which included a six-month suspension for USADA whereabouts failures. And it didn’t sit right with a champion who has willingly taken on all comers since his UFC debut in 2016. “Mate, if you’re going carry on all that, say it to my face,” Volkanovski said. “If you really want to carry on like that. Or was it just trying to get the shot? You know, build a bit of hype? I don’t know. But if that’s really what you feel about it, then bring that same energy in person as well, because I didn’t do nothing wrong. You’re the one who didn’t fight for over two years, and you’re the one who’s coming off a loss. You want to get angry and then carry on, whatever. But look, again, I guess when you’re at the top, this happens.” Volkanovski had similarly harsh venom for Chikadze. Yet if nothing else, the entire saga of the past few weeks only reaffirmed Volkanovski’s belief that he’s going to be the UFC featherweight champion for years to come, because when he gets a peek into the mindsets shared by many of his fellow 145-pounders, he simply can’t relate. “I’ll be honest: At the time, I just can’t believe it [when other fighters say these things],” Volkanovski said. “I don’t know if I’m bred different, or it’s just my mentality. We’ve had plenty of conversations and you know what I’m like. I’m always talking about earning it. Go and earn that No. 1 [spot]. Let nothing be given to you. That’s my mentality. I’m the type of guy that, rather than crying like a little girl and things like that, I’m going to go on and earn that No. 1 spot by taking out the No. 1 contenders. Take out whoever I have to until they put me there, so there’s no one else in front of me. That’s what I’m like. “Then I start hearing all these guys carry on like that, and let me tell you this — I’m going to be champion for a long time. The mentality that I have compared to some of these guys, the way they go about things and the way they just want things given to them — Yair’s a good example for that. Dodging fights, just trying to find an easier way to the title shot, and carrying on like he did now. You think you’re going to beat me with that mentality? Psshh, that’s why I’m the champion for a long time. Because the mentality I have and the guy I am, and the guy that’s going to be turning up in the gym, doing what he has to do. “Even as a champ, I’m going to be doing what I need to do to make sure I stay on top. I’m still more eager than these guys chasing the [title], because that’s just me, that’s just who I am. That’s what I’m all about. These guys want to be carrying on like little princesses and just expect things given to them. But when you have that attitude, you ain’t never going to get nowhere in life. So whatever.”