UFC is reportedly aiming to match up bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling and former titleholder TJ Dillashaw for their September 10th pay-per-view event.
The fight, which is in the process of being finalized, was reported Wednesday by Nolan King and Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie. Should it be made official, it will join a card that doesn’t have a confirmed location at the moment.
The booking gives Sterling a chance to defend his belt for the second time. He notoriously earned the belt in 2021, as previous champion Petr Yan disqualified himself in the fourth round of a title fight with an illegal knee.
Sterling won in a rematch against Yan earlier this year, pulling off an upset split decision win to retain his belt. With that rivalry in the past, Sterling now has the chance to face new challenges.
Dillashaw will be fighting for a chance to become a three-time bantamweight champion. He notably had a run from 2014 to 2016 and held the belt from 2017 to 2019 as well.
Dillashaw, 36, has been mostly out of the spotlight in recent years. This is in part due to a two-year suspension that he was given in 2019 by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. This suspension kept him sidelined for a significant chunk of time and put an end to his second title reign.
He returned from that suspension last year, winning a five-round bout against Cory Sandhagen in a split decision ruling.
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