Warning: don’t show up at Jose Aldo’s gym unless you’re ready for a fight…
Current UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo has a lot on his plate this weekend. Facing the interim champ Max Holloway in a unification clash, ‘Scarface’ will need to be on top form.
After losing the title in his first ever UFC loss against Conor McGregor, many questions were raised about Aldo’s future. Not just due to the loss, but because of his defiance and slating of his UFC employers.
Aldo Back On Track?
Undoubtedly the greatest featherweight champion in terms of defenses and tenure, Aldo’s second reign came about with the influence of, you guessed it, Conor McGregor. The very man who KO’d Aldo at UFC 194 was later stripped of the belt, meaning Aldo’s interim win at UFC 2090 got him promoted to full champion.
In terms of how ready Aldo will be physically, training with the beasts at Nova Uniao is still working wonders for ‘Scrface.’ Unfortunately for one Brazilian reporter who infiltrated Aldo’s camp, he didn’t have such a great time.
Watch as Aldo, and his team, KO and choke this poor journalist to their hearts content:
Let’s just hope this guy signed the waiver.
So what does the future hold for Aldo, and is he now happy with the UFC again? As transcribed by Sherdog.com, Aldo spoke ahead of this weekend’s UFC 212 event about his future and more:
Boxing, McGregor & More…
“Boxing is — that’s always been a personal wish of mine and it’s something that I like to think of a little bit down the road, but the wish that I have is not to just — I don’t have any specific one fight that I’d like to have,” Aldo said through a translator during a recent media call. “I’d like to start a career in fighting smaller shows and see where that takes me.”
“I think there’s a lot of guys coming up, new guys who are going to be coming up and be fighting for the title soon,” he said. “So, it really doesn’t matter to me. My job is to go in there and defend my belt.”
“I think right now I have to get through this title fight and once I get through that, I can start thinking of some of the other things I would like to do,” Aldo said. “I think there may be a lot of challenges in other divisions or with other guys that I haven’t fought before. So, I think there’s plenty left for me to challenge myself. And in my personal life, I have my own things as well, but that’s between me and my family.”
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“Although it was a while ago when I fought Conor, it was something that I tried to make the best out of. I’m not going to sit around and cry, but in the end, we did lose the fight. So, if I were to go back and change anything, I would change that. But everything else that went around it, the division was promoted. The UFC — myself, I was promoted,” Aldo said.
“I try to see the good in it, the silver lining and everything but, the UFC tried to make this fight happen again, and it didn’t. The guy does not want to fight with me again. It may be the last time that people ask. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore and that’s fine. It happened. It’s in the past.”
“Holloway, he’s a guy that I’ve been looking for, for a while and I knew that we’d end up facing each other. He’s a tough guy,” Aldo said. “And in my MMA career, I’m happy to go to the gym every day. This is what I chose to do with my life. I’m happy to be able to do this, and I know there’s plenty of people out there who would love to be doing it and can’t. Boxing is something that I love to do. It’s a wish of mine that I’ve had to not just put on big fights, but put on a career in boxing.
“But that’s something I’m going to have to discuss with UFC and see what’s the best way of doing that down the line. But right now, I’d like to defend my belt and that’s what I’m going to continue to do.”
