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UFC 273: Petr Yan threatens to ‘kill’ Aljamain Sterling in hotel brawl, ‘Funk Master’ sends location

UFC 259 Press Conference Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Pro wrestling has the 24/7 title — which means you have to defend it 24 hours a day, seven days week — so you can be reading Weekly World News while standing in line at the local grocery store and suddenly BAM you get a bag of frozen peas to the dome.

With all the hotel altercations over the last few years, including the infamous hand-sanitizer incident between Paddy Pimblett and Ilia Topuria at UFC London, maybe it’s time for UFC to set up a cage in the hotel lobby in case fighters blow their stacks before showtime.

LIVE! Watch UFC 288 PPV On ESPN+ Here!

BLOCKBUSTER BANTAMWEIGHT BATTLE! Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returns to Newark, N.J., for the first time in more than three years on Sat., May 6, 2023, with a blockbuster Bantamweight collision inside Prudential Center that will see Aljamain Sterling attempt another successful title defense against returning two-division titleholder and former gold medal-winning Olympic wrestler, Henry Cejudo. In UFC 288’s last-minute pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event, former Welterweight title challenger, Gilbert Burns, locks horns with No. 4-seeded contender, Belal Muhammad, in a five-round, 170-pound No. 1 contender eliminator match.

Don’t miss a single second of EPIC face-punching action!

Starting with bitter rivals Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling.

“If we see his team, we kill [all his] team,” Yan told reporters at the UFC 273 media day. “Right now, not Saturday.”

Yan lost his 135-pound title by way of disqualification at UFC 259 but managed to claim the interim crown when Sterling took an extended leave of absence to repair his injured neck. The time off led to an increasingly hostile war of words over social media.

Just don’t expect “Funk Master” to be hiding in the janitor’s closet.

“I have not seen him, I honestly kinda want to see him just to see what would happen,” Sterling told the media in a subsequent interview. “I’m calm, cool, collected, so I go off the energy he’s gonna bring. If he thinks it’s gonna be on, I’m ready. I’m more than ready. I’m ready now and I’m ready Saturday. If you really wanna do something, I’m right here. I’m in the same hotel as you — you can find me. If you want, I can give you my room number.”

Colby Covington just dialed 9, 1, and is now patiently waiting.

Yan and Sterling will (finally) settle their bantamweight score in the UFC 273 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event this Sat. night (April 9, 2022) inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., though something tells me it won’t be the end of this heated rivalry.

To see who else is fighting at UFC 273 click here.

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