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LOS ANGELES — Jose Aldo has been very vocal about his belief that MMA fighters do not get paid enough. Don’t expect that to change with the UFC featherweight champion in a massive main event against Conor McGregor at UFC 189.

“I will always complain,” Aldo said through an interpreter during the UFC 189 World Tour’s LA stop Tuesday. “This is the right that I have. I always want more. I will always want to earn more. This is the right that I have, so I’m going to continue doing this.”

In December, Aldo, who is not typically known for anti-company outbursts, sounded off about fighter compensation during a fan Q&A in Barueri, Brazil.

“We suffer a lot and live to do a show,” Aldo said at the time. “We get paid way less than we deserve. We deliver shows and deserve to get paid more. We practically pay to do this. You deserve to get better paid if you sell the fight.”

Selling a fight has never been Aldo’s strong suit and he has admitted that he would prefer to just get in there and scrap. The Brazilian is one of the best human beings in the world at doing just that. But if nothing else, McGregor, the best talker in the UFC, has proven that combat sports is more than just winning.

The Irishman was asked Tuesday why he and Aldo are going on a worldwide press tour when no one from a stacked UFC 187 (featuring pound-for-pound best fighter Jon Jones) was getting the same treatment. McGregor replied, “You’re looking at him.” And he has a point. That is something Aldo actually appreciates about his opponent.

“It’s great to have a joker like him that calls the attention of all the public to the division,” Aldo said. “So yeah, this is one of the things that I admire on him.”

Aldo, who has held the UFC/WEC title since 2009, doesn’t embrace doing media the way McGregor does. Part of it is the language barrier. But it could also just be a personality thing. Aldo said that being around McGregor for the last few days — with another five cities to go — has been uncomfortable.

“I try not to get close to him, because he’s not a friend of mine,” Aldo said. “But this is my job. But especially with him it’s especially difficult, because he’s a joker. He’s kind of awkward, all the things he talks about me, but this is my job. I have to do this.”

Aldo (25-1) does get that this is good for him, too. He said he wants everyone to see this fight as not only the biggest fight in the history of the featherweight division, but “the UFC’s most important fight.”

“If UFC sees this fight as the biggest of history, I just accept that we really need to promote this,” Aldo said. “I always did promotion for my fights. Never something like this, but I’m happy that we’re doing it, that everybody is seeing this as the hugest fight of all times.”

That will surely equal more money in Aldo’s pocket. Just not enough for his tastes.

The UFC is making good on its promise to make Kelvin Gastelum move up to middleweight.

The top prospect will go back to his former division and meet Nate Marquardt at UFC 188 on June 13 in Mexico City, the UFC announced Tuesday.

Gastelum won The Ultimate Fighter 17 reality series at middleweight in 2013, but moved down to welterweight afterward. He struggled to make the 171-pound maximum there and was told to move up after missing weight by nine pounds before his bout with Tyron Woodley at UFC 183 on Jan. 31 in Las Vegas.

Gastelum (10-1) lost the fight to Woodley by split decision for his first career defeat. Before that, the Mexican American fighter had beaten Jake Ellenberger in impressive fashion by first-round submission at UFC 180 last November. Gastelum, 23, remains a future star, but it remains to be seen how high his ceiling will be at middleweight, where he will routinely be going up against taller opponents. Gastelum is just 5-foot-9.

Marquardt (33-14-2), the former Strikeforce middleweight champion, has lost three of his last four fights. He fell to Brad Tavares at UFC 182 on Jan. 3 via unanimous decision and has also lost to Ellenberger and Hector Lombard by first-round knockout since returning to the UFC. Marquardt, 35, has been a pro MMA fighter since 1999 and owns notable wins over Woodley, Demian Maia and Rousimar Palhares.

UFC 188 will be headlined by a heavyweight title unification fight between champion Cain Velasquez and interim champ Fabricio Werdum. The event takes place at Arena Ciudad de Mexico, where the UFC debuted in Mexico back in November. That event sold out with more than 21,000 in attendance and that was without Velasquez, the UFC’s most popular Mexican American fighter, who was injured.

LOS ANGELES — Conor McGregor has his suspicions about Jose Aldo being a clean fighter.

In Las Vegas on Monday, McGregor made some thinly veiled references that Aldo could have been on performance-enhancing drugs during his UFC career. The brash Irishman doubled down on those words Tuesday during the UFC 189 World Tour stop at the Intercontinental Hotel here in LA.

“It seems to me like maybe it’s Brazilian culture,” McGregor said of PED use. “The women are on it. The men are on it. I don’t know what to think. So I don’t really have to think. It’s in Vegas. We are in a new age. The sport is being cleaned. The athletes who are dedicated to martial arts and dedicated to health and fitness and purity, they are the athletes who are being rewarded now. I am happy to be part of the new age.”

McGregor was referring to the UFC’s new drug-testing policy, which is planned for a rollout in July — right on time for the featherweight title fight between champion Aldo and McGregor at UFC 189 on July 11 in Las Vegas.

The UFC is planning on randomly testing its entire roster of nearly 600 fighters out of competition multiple times per year. The promotion will also be urging athletic commissions to increase the length of suspensions for those caught to up to four years. The UFC will also continue to help fund testing done by specific commissions, which it has increasingly done in Nevada and California.

“Thankfully, the fight is in Nevada,” McGregor said Monday in Vegas. “Thankfully, we are in a new age of the sport. Thankfully, the Nevada State Athletic Commission [is] doing out-of-competition testing. We are not in Brazil now.”

Aldo turned the tables on McGregor when asked Tuesday in LA about performance-enhancing drugs. The featherweight champion said it was McGregor using PEDs, not him.

“He’s the one that takes those substances,” Aldo said through an interpreter. “That’s no surprise in why he fights in this weight class. In his country, they don’t even have a commission to put a rule on this. Something that I’m going to do, I’m going to ask for the doping tests every week. I want him to be tested and I’m here to be tested, too. I’m here to prove that I’m the one who is clean.”

It is likely that the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) will do random, out-of-competition testing for this fight much in the same way it did for recent Las Vegas main events between Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz and Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier. Silva tested positive for anabolic steroid metabolites in one of those pre-fight screenings, which McGregor called a dark day for MMA.

“When all the stuff came out when Anderson was on the juice, a few people got caught, it wasn’t a great thing for the sport,” McGregor said. “Then when they were calling the press conference [to announce the new drug-testing policy], I spoke with Lorenzo and I said this should be a celebration. This press conference should be a celebration. We are changing the game now. We’re turning the tide. Now we are dedicated to the fight against this. Purity. Pure martial arts, pure combat. It’s a new age and it should be celebrated. So I am happy to be part of that new age.”

Aldo is also in favor of the new policy and he’s willing to put himself through even more stringent testing heading into UFC 189 to show McGregor he is wrong.

“I’d put myself in the position of being tested every week, too,” Aldo said. “I don’t have any problem with this. They can send whoever they want to test me. I don’t see any problem. I want to prove that I’m clean for this fight. If he’s not, it’s a problem on him.”

LOS ANGELES
Dana White is on the move. The UFC President rushes through the front lobby of the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills and swiftly plants himself in the back seat of a waiting black Escalade. It’s just shy of 8 a.m. and a full day of Southern California media appearances promoting the UFC 189 World Tour is ahead. “Let’s go, brother!” he tells the driver.

UFC 189 World Tour Flight Facts

LEG: Los Angeles to Boston
DATE: Tuesday, March 24
DEPART: 6:40 p.m. PT, Van Nuys (Calif) Airport
ARRIVE: 2:29 a.m. ET, Laurence G. Hanscom Field, Bedford M … Read the Full Article Here

UFC President Dana White said Tuesday that TJ Dillashaw has sustained a rib fracture that will force a postponement of his much-anticipated UFC 186 bantamweight rematch against Renan Barao in Montreal on April 25.
White revealed the news during an interview with Los Angeles radio personality Kurt “Big Boy” Alexander on KRRL-FM 92.3. Dillashaw’s injury occurred during training on Monday, White said. There is no immediate timetable for his return.
 
UPDATE: The flyweight title fight between Demetrious Johnson and Kyoji Horiguchi has been moved up to the main event of UFC 186. Quinton “Ra … Read the Full Article Here