Highly regarded undefeated UFC bantamweight prospect Aljamain Sterling could be the next notable fighter to test the free-agent waters – if he doesn’t decide to just retire altogether.

Sterling (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC), who’s ranked No. 12 in the NOS Energy Drink MMA bantamweight rankings (and No. 5 in the official UFC rankings), takes on Johnny Eduardo (27-9 MMA, 2-1 UFC) at Thursday’s UFC Fight Night 80 event. The bout is part of the UFC Fight Pass-streamed preliminary card at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

Although Sterling has been healthy, it’s his first fight since April. That inconsistent schedule – he fought just twice in 2014 and now fights for the second time in 2015 – is one reason he wants to explore his options after this bout, which is the last one on his current contract.

“I don’t want to make it sound like I’m gambling against the UFC, but at the same time, the offer they made me just wasn’t that compelling,” he told MMAjunkie. “I will say that.

“For what I’ve done and what I plan to do to this next guy, I just don’t think it’s a compelling enough offer for where I’m going to be compared to the other guys who are ranked in the top five in their division. So I look at those kinds of things to see where I’m at and what’s reasonable.”

Sterling didn’t discuss the proposed figures, but they weren’t enticing enough to get him to re-sign with the sport’s leading promotion. So he’s going to fight out the last bout on his current deal and do what recent UFC winner and ex-champ Benson Henderson is planning to do: test his value on the open market.

After all, Sterling is committed to leaving the sport with more than he entered it with, and that includes actual money. He said he worries about wasting the prime of his career sitting on the sidelines, and he mentioned brain injuries as a constant concern. In fact, those are a few of the reasons he recently pondered retiring from the sport.

“It was a very big moment of frustration for me,” the New Yorker said. “It sucks because I’ve been offered a full-time teaching job, and starting salary here on Long Island for a physical-education teacher is $56,000, and that would’ve been more money than I made between my two fights from last year, 2014.

“So, it just kind of sucks when you look at the numbers like that. I’m 26. I got in the UFC when I was 24, and I only had three fights from Feb. 22 (2014) until now.”

Without a constant stream of fights (UFC officials told him would-be opponents have been consistently turning down matchups, Sterling said), the Serra-Longo Fight Team rep said it’s obviously tough to make a good living. He made a disclosed purse of $16,000 for his UFC-debut win over Cody Gibson, but figures aren’t available for his two most recent fights (they took place in New Jersey, and the local commission doesn’t release them).

Additionally, he hasn’t received any of the $50,000 fight-night bonuses handed out after each event – even though he believed he had a compelling argument with his April win over former WEC title challenger Takeya Mizugaki. Sterling used a nifty arm-triangle choke from bottom and finished it in guard, but he didn’t pick up a bonus.

Instead, the “Performance of the Night” awards went to Luke Rockhold, who stopped Lyoto Machida with a rear-naked choke in the headliner, and Max Holloway, who tapped out Cub Swanson.

“I told (UFC President Dana White), ‘Yo, I had a submission that hasn’t been done before, and you gave the (bonus) to Rockhold, for a rear-naked choke or whatever,” he said. “I mean, that was a highly contested fight between two high-level guys. But you had an unranked guy (Sterling) do that to the No. 6-ranked guy in the world. I don’t know. I just figure if you’re going to go by performance, you’ve got to keep it by performance.”

Still, despite his concerns over pay and bonuses – and despite the likelihood that he could be talking to other fight promotions after Thursday’s bout, Sterling does have his eye on the grand prize. And if he and the UFC can come to an agreement, he thinks he’ll prove why he deserved a raise.

“I could realistically see myself fighting for the belt – challenging for the belt – in 2016,” he said.

For more on UFC Fight Night 80, check out the UFC Events section of the site.