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Aljamain Sterling is the UFC bantamweight champion, but it’s not the manner in which he’d want to claim gold.

At UFC 259, Sterling went at Petr Yan like a bat out of hell for the first two rounds, but after a while Yan began beating the challenger to the punch and Sterling’s offence rapidly dropped to the point where Yan began pulling ahead. Then, in the fourth round, Yan landed a ridiculously illegal knee to a Sterling, who was classified as a downed opponent, with one knee on the canvas.

After a few minutes, Sterling was ruled unable to continue, and therefore was proclaimed world champion. Check out what some of their colleagues had to say: