A main card UFC Shanghai fighter has some guidance for Aaron Pico.
Pico entered his UFC debut with some buzz, but he was thrown to the wolves immediately. The former Bellator and PFL standout shared the Octagon with Lerone Murphy in the UFC 319 co-headliner. Pico ran into a spinning back elbow that shut his lights off. One criticism of Pico throughout his career has been over aggression, and it cost him once again.
Mike Heck of MMAFighting.com got a chance to speak with Aljamain Sterling ahead of his UFC Shanghai showdown with Brian Ortega on Saturday. Sterling was asked about Pico’s loss to Murphy, and “Funkmaster” shared some advice.
“I think that’s it, simply perspective,” Sterling said. “He’s been knocked out like that before running into a shot, and he built himself back up. I think he has to keep it in perspective and at the end of the day, it was just a fight IQ error. You take that away, he probably wins that fight the way that it was going.
“I mean, it was only three minutes into the first round, but still, that showed a lot for the indication of how good he actually is. So I think you’ve got to look at a glass half full, yeah, I might have got sent to the gulags, but at the same time I was actually doing really well against an undefeated, highly touted guy who could potentially fight for a world title.”
Pico turns 29 years old in September. While time might be on his side, some are skeptical that he’ll be able to live up to the expectations that have been put on him throughout his MMA run. Time will tell if Pico can rise to the occasion or fall against tough competition on the UFC featherweight roster.