When former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo continued his winning ways by knocking off Renato Miocano via TKO at UFC Fortaleza last weekend, streaking 145-pound contender Alexander Volkanovski was quick to call out the Brazilian legend.
While Aldo initially revealed that he hadn’t heard of the Australian fighter, which didn’t seem to bother Volkanovski all that much, Aldo’s head coach, Andre Pederneiras, is now singing a different tune.
“We want him to fight Alexander Volkanovski, the guy who knocked out Chad Mendes, the guy who is the best ranked,” Pederneiras told Confraria da Porrada. “In fact, it is the following: we have a dream to dispute the title, which is difficult. So we have the dream of our last fight to get there.
“There are only two possibilities. Max Holloway moves up in weight and leaves the belt vacant, and Aldo would be the postulate to the title, even for the history that he has and for being the first of the ranking, or to eliminate all the contenders. The Moicano fight was the first contender, in our head, and the second would be Alexander Volkanovski, who is the fourth-ranked now. Or Frankie Edgar, I don’t believe they give him the title shot while having lost to Aldo. So the guy in our head who would be the next title challenger would be Alexander now. We’re talking,”
Looks like former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis will have to take a backseat.
Volkanovski, 30, is coming off a huge TKO victory over Chad Mendes at UFC 232 back in December, pushing his UFC record to an impressive 6-0. The former rugby player is one of the most dangerous fighters at 145 pounds today and has arguably done enough over the past two years to earn a title shot against current featherweight champion Max Holloway.
If Aldo was able to land a matchup with “The Great,” maybe even at UFC 237 this coming May in Curitiba, Brazil, it would give him the opportunity to win a third-straight fight against a ranked contender and potentially line him up for a final UFC title shot by year’s end just in time for his talked about retirement.
Of course, a potential rematch with Conor McGregor always loom in the distance, especially with Aldo’s recent resurgence. But Pederneiras is hesitant to put all of his eggs in that basket.
“Conor even started some business on his Twitter, saying that he wanted to fight here in Brazil, suggesting that he would do this fight with Aldo,” Pederneiras said. “But I do not see it happening. For him, it will be marked for the rest of his life, not worth the risk. What can he do better than 13 seconds? Anything. If he makes a fight and if he knocked Aldo out in 14 seconds, it would be worse than the first, which he won in 13. So it’s a fight that he does not have any interest in.”