Nah, that's a popular tactic for wrestlers Vs strikers fights. When the fight is scheduled for 5 rounds, there's no pressure to show all your cards in the first round. It makes sense for wrestlers to engage with striking, so their opponent starts to feel more comfortable and it's easier to shorten the distance. We saw it e.g. in Blachowicz Vs Adesanya fight when Jan was exchanging strikes for like 2 rounds before starting to shoot for takedowns. He admitted later in an interview that was his strategy.
A wrestler in MMA usually also has striking although not as good as a pure striker with a boxing or muaythai base. In my personal opinion, wrestlers usually measure their opponent's striking ability to assess whether they are able to compete with their opponent. Wrestling requires great stamina and I think even pure wrestlers will not necessarily have stamina for five rounds. So competing with striking in the first and second rounds can also be said to be a strategy. The third to fifth rounds are usually when wrestlers will show their cards. But the problem is that wrestlers have problems if their opponents have good takedown defense. I don't know what happened to Sterling but Blachowiz realized that he couldn't compete with Adesanya with striking so he started playing ground games in the third to fifth rounds.
Lol, this is so hilarious. Aljo listened to a wrong guy and it cost him belt. 
