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Jose Aldo looks back on his 13-second KO loss to Conor McGregor at UFC 194.
No one expected Conor McGregor to flatten Jose Aldo in thirteen seconds at UFC 194, not after months of trash talk between the two men in the leadup to the bout.
But that’s exactly what happened. McGregor KO’d Aldo with a left hook in the opening exchange, setting the record for the fastest knockout in UFC title fight history and snapping ‘Scarface’s’ 18-fight win streak and title reign of four years.
Even now, four years on, Aldo is still baffled by the result and admitted to Cris Cyborg that he started having doubts about his chin after the bout.
“We never expect to lose — and lose like that,” Aldo said (via MMA Fighting). “It’s a sport and it’s 50-50, of course, it could happen one day. As long as we’re fighting, losing is a possibility, but I was so confident in my head going into this fight. ‘No, I’m super well-prepared, I can’t see how this guy wins.’
“For everything that was said and everything that was going on, my team and I were positive that we would get there and defeat him. And that’s not what happened.”
Aldo said the McGregor loss pushed him to train twice as hard and he soon stopped doubting himself after beating Frankie Edgar to win the interim UFC featherweight title in his rebound fight.
“Right after that I said, ‘no, I’m the champion, that was only one fact that will never happen again in my life. That’s why I have to train twice as hard, see the mistakes I made and never make them again,’” he said.
Aldo has since gone 3-4 in Octagon appearances and recently dropped from featherweight to bantamweight. The Brazilian was expected to challenge Henry Cejudo for the bantamweight title at UFC 250 but was forced out of the bout due to coronavirus.
Cejudo will now defend his title against former bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz at UFC 249, which is scheduled to take place on May 9 at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.