Former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling made his featherweight debut at UFC 300 against eighth-ranked Calvin Kattar.  If he had lost, Sterling may have retired.

"Fight day in the backroom is when I really started to second guess a lot of everything.  I was just having doubt of like, man, if this doesn't go well I don't know where I go from here," Sterling said on The MMA Hour.  "Do I continue to keep fighting?  Do I just call it quits kind of thing?  Those are real thoughts I had.

"At the end of the day, I'm not just trying to collect a check.  There's so many guys that stick around just to do that.  I respect them, but I'm here to be number one," Sterling continued.  "If it's just like I'm going to be in the pack, I've made enough money.  I think I've done enough in my career where I'm like, alright, it's probably time to find a new job.  That's kind of the way I look at things.  If you're not first, you're last."  

Sterling kept his inner monologue to himself.  He didn't tell his coaches, teammates, or his fiancé that he was thinking about retiring if he lost.  

"It depends on how it would have happened," he said.  "If I had got my a** completely kicked by Calvin Kattar, I was probably done.  No one knew about that.  I didn't share those sentiments with anybody."

Fortunately for "Funk Master," he defeated Kattar by unanimous decision and replaced Kattar in the eighth spot in the featherweight rankings. He expects to be back in the octagon this fall and wants to fight the highest ranked opponent that he can get.