By now, you might have seen the video of Jose Aldo (25-2) crying in his locker room following his 13-second knockout loss at the hands of Conor McGregor. Aldo, still shirtless in the immediate aftermath of the fight, sits down facing the wall and buries his head in a white towel, where he stays for at least 13 minutes as the world begins to return to normal around him.
A few minutes in, one of his corner men embraces him, rubs his back. Another takes his head in his hands, hoping to console him, to soothe his raw emotions.
At several points, his head shakes back and forth, as if he is still struggling to comprehend what happened. As time passes, more and more people crowd around him until he falls to his back and covers his face again. Even without sound, even without seeing Aldo’s face, it is heartbreaking to watch.
It should also be required viewing for any fan. Mixed martial arts is sometimes thrilling, and occasionally gut-wrenching. And that is without having to worry about the public reaction.
For risking his 10-year unbeaten streak, for choosing to face a rising star, for losing, Aldo was skewered and ridiculed by far too many.
Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, for example, called the loss a “stain” on his career, characterized his 13-second defeat as “shameful,” and said the defeat “tarnished” his legacy. The UOL website reported that a film based on Aldo’s life would be delayed amid fears that his defeat would make it a “box-office flop for sure.”
And that’s just from his home country.
When the former champion went down, it shouldn’t have been a time to celebrate his defeat or to insult a lifetime’s worth of struggle. Aldo was born into abject poverty, scraping together money to buy a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro to chase his dreams.
When he arrived at coach Andre “Dede” Pederneiras’ gym, he did so with one bag that contained nearly all of his life’s possessions. He slept in a gym because he had no money. His teammates and coaches had to feed him because they worried about his well being.
These are the challenging conditions he faced for years, ones that would have made many athletes surrender in hopes of something more immediately comfortable. But not Aldo. He humbly suffered through all that to work, to improve, to chase his dream.
Slowly he rose to become a rising star, then a phenom, then a champion. When Aldo stepped into the cage at UFC 194, he was the longest-reigning champion on the UFC roster, holding the belt for over five years, since the division was first instituted in the promotion in Nov. 2010.
Through nearly a year of buildup, Aldo had been skewered by Conor McGregor, who basically called him a coward among other unprintable terms. McGregor’s magnetism and omnipresence certainly affected the perception of Aldo, as did the Brazilian’s inability to connect with English-speaking fans due to the language barrier. It also didn’t help when the UFC publicly disputed Aldo’s broken rib diagnosis that scuttled plans for the first scheduled fight with McGregor.
All of that combined to swing the fight’s narrative towards McGregor, painting him as the future of the organization. That may well turn out to be correct, but what Aldo has done in his career should not be so easily forgotten.
This is the man who knocked out Cub Swanson in eight seconds, the one who finished Chad Mendes and ran into the crowd to celebrate, the one who beat everyone placed in front of him for 10 years.
The scope of that streak is difficult to comprehend. To put it into context, the last time Aldo lost before Saturday:
- PRIDE was still in business, and Fedor Emelianenko was its heavyweight champion
- UFC was less than a year into its TV deal with Spike
- “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” was the country’s No. 1 movie
- New Orleans was still devastated by the events of Hurricane Katrina
- Shaun Alexander won the NFL Most Valuable Player award after scoring 28 touchdowns
- Current UFC lightweight Sage Northcutt was nine years old
The weight of the belt is incalculable. Over the years, multiple champions including Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre have spoken about the pressure that builds with every title defense. All the while Aldo held that strap, a division’s worth of men were in gyms around the world, pinpointing his holes, strategizing his demise. A challenger could materialize from any corner of the globe. And then came McGregor.
Behind all of his talk, McGregor does at least have a sense of martial arts honor.
Even before the fight, he confirmed he would shake hands with Aldo after the bout in a sign of respect. He followed through with that, then posted a message of support to Aldo to his social media accounts, writing, “Respect to a great champion in Jose Aldo. The true greats will always overcome adversity. I wish him and his loyal team well on their journey back. Much respect.”
To McGregor, his pre-fight words were part-business, part-psychological warfare. These aren’t necessarily the agreed-upon terms of battle, but are largely accepted in an unspoken way. They aren’t necessarily the truth, but designed to rattle opponents and plant seeds of self-doubt. In that, they served their purpose.
So, too, however, do his final words to Aldo. Perhaps Aldo never connected with audiences the way his talent deserved. Perhaps he was a bit too aloof to invest into in a deep way. But his record and exploits will always speak for him.
Thirteen seconds of failure don’t undo 10 years of perfection, and certainly don’t cancel out a lifetime of triumph over hardship. For 13 minutes in his locker room, he cried over a lost moment. Forever forward, he can smile wide and long for all he has achieved.
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