Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight champion, Jose Aldo, was not going to earn a 170-pound title shot with a win over Alexander Volkanovski at the UFC 237 pay-per-view (PPV) last Sat. night (May 11, 2019) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, having already come up short in consecutive title fights to reigning division kingpin, Max Holloway.
That doesn’t make losing to “The Great” any easier to stomach.
Which is probably why “Junior” took to social media in the wake of his three-round defeat to express his disappointment in the outcome, which is expected to cost him the No. 1 spot in the 145-pound rankings (see the soon-to-be updated leaderboard here).
“I would like to thank everyone who was there and thanked everyone in the arena and in their homes, thank you very much,” Aldo wrote on Instagram. “I have never fought so badly in my life, no excuses but I know of my ability and talent. Without taking the merits of my opponent who made his fight, but I am sad with myself and I transfer everything in myself because I let it happen and I did not do the fight I was supposed to do.”
Aldo (28-5) is an even 3-3 since coughing up his title to Conor McGregor back in late 2015. “Junior” only has one fight remaining on his UFC contract and is expected to part ways with the promotion after his final fight later this year in Brazil.
Whether he ends up in a competing promotion or tries his hand(s) at boxing remains to be seen, but the 32 year-old Brazilian has been an outspoken critic of UFC and the way it has treated its talent for several years, so I doubt he’ll be getting an enticing offer to stick around.
We’ll know for sure in just a few months.