In trying to determine who is the UFC’s most outspoken featherweight, it might take a while to consider Jose Aldo.
Conor McGregor‘s Gaelic gift of gab garners most of the headlines at 145 pounds. These days, you might even think of Frankie Edgar first after the former lightweight champion jumped on the lip of the Octagon to challenge McGregor at UFC 189 two weeks ago then took to Twitter to compare the new interim champion to a cow the UFC must milk before Edgar leads him to slaughter.
But Aldo also talks—and when he does, there’s no need to ask him how he really feels.
In fact, it’s starting to seem like the one true king of the featherweight division is having a hard time not keeping it 100. Take Aldo’s press conference last week in Brazil and the resulting video posted by MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz, which is pretty much 16 uninterrupted minutes of Aldo spitting hot fire on the major issues of the day (NSFW language in video and below):
Among other things, Aldo took on McGregor (“Get ready,” he said, “I’m coming.”), the UFC’s new exclusive outfitting agreement with Reebok (“It sucks.”) and the fight company’s new push to ban intravenous rehydration along with its new drug testing partners at the United States Anti-Doping Agency (“They are f–king stupid,” Aldo flatly proclaimed).
He sat up on the stage with the bearing of a street-level crime boss, chuckling to himself over any question that seemed halfway provocative. His answers were the muttered declarations of a man who believes he’s above the law and has seven years’ worth of anecdotal evidence suggesting he has nothing to fear.
In a world where even unrestrained braggarts like McGregor take pains to keep their trash talk neatly confined behind company lines, it’s all pretty interesting. After watching this—and with apologies to both the Irish Dandy and Edgar—it’s clear Aldo is still the most candid man at 145 pounds.
Just take it all in for a moment, if you can:
Aldo claimed he didn’t even watch McGregor take on injury replacement Chad Mendes in UFC 189’s makeshift main event. “If I’m not fighting, I’m not interested,” he deadpanned.
He described the lengthy “world tour” the UFC bankrolled so he and McGregor could publicize the event’s original lineup as “a pain in the a–” and said the only thing he regrets is being “too calm” in the face of all McGregor‘s insults.
He said he’ll retire from the sport once he breaks Anderson Silva’s record of 10 consecutive title defenses—which, if you’re scoring at home, is just three fights away. That means one the greatest careers in the history of MMA could potentially wrap up before age 31.
Some of his talk rings hollow. Some of it feels perfunctory. Some of it seems flat-out inadvisable.
But it’s always captivating
For example, Aldo probably shouldn’t publicly detail his plans to ignore the UFC’s new IV ban, but he did.
When the company rolled out the specifics of its new drug testing protocol at a press event in June, it came equipped with eye-popping punishments for those in violation. One of the stipulations of that initiative is that UFC fighters will no longer be allowed to hook themselves up to IVs of over 50 milliliters to rehydrate after weigh-ins.
Aldo, owner of a notoriously murderous weight cut to make 145 pounds, said he ain’t having it:
I will continue to do IV, I don’t care … I will do it anyway, or someone else will do it for me. I will go to a friend’s house, to a different hotel room. I don’t f–king care about them. They won’t take me out of the fight anyway. They can’t take me from the fight. It’s not doping. They will say they will test me. How are they going to get IV rehydration from my urine, brother?
(Ed. Note: Sorry, Aldo, rumor is, they do have a test for that.)
Defiance is not exactly a new look for Aldo. It’s possible things have never been right between him and his UFC bosses.
As the only featherweight champion the Octagon has ever known, he has established a precedent for voicing his opinion on hot button topics—most notably fighter pay. He’s also outfoxed every opponent matchmakers have thrown at him while crafting a serious push to be recognized as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Somehow, he’s simultaneously been sort of a disappointment. Many of his UFC fights have lacked the violent urgency of his run through the WEC from 2008-10. He’s also—rightly or wrongly—developed a reputation for being injury-prone after being forced out of several bouts.
When broken ribs short-circuited his highly publicized grudge match against McGregor at UFC 189, the company didn’t exactly support him in the strongest possible terms. Even after Aldo’s camp released medical records that appeared to conclusively illustrate his broken ribs, UFC President Dana White continued to insist the ribs were merely bruised.
When the UFC moved to put the interim title on McGregor in Aldo’s absence, it felt like a decision half borne of promotional necessity and half out of pure spite.
But when asked if Aldo wished he and his employers had a better relationship throughout his long tenure as champion, he just shrugged. He only cares about his reputation in Brazil, he seemed to say, and making the fans in his home country proud.
“What they do in America,” Aldo said, “I couldn’t care less.”
Well, alrighty then.
The most striking thing about Aldo here is that none of this comes off as puffery. This isn’t the bombastic but empty talk that is so common in the fight game. It’s not the bluster of an attention-hungry up-and-comer trying to make a name for himself.
No, this all has the ring of perfect truth.
This is just Aldo calling it like he sees it.
In a sport where talk sometimes feels impossibly cheap, that’s pretty special.
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