Let’s talk for a moment about the word deserve.
The MMA industry is typically a fairly pragmatic place—one where the Oscar-winning sentiment of retired Wild West gunslinger Bill Munny rings eternally true. But let’s pause long enough from our coldblooded talk of pay-per-view buyrates and contract negotiations to make one slightly more human point.
UFC mixed martial artist Jose Aldo deserves better than this.
He deserves better, but he’s not going to get it.
Even as we all tumble headlong into the dizzy, high and endless possibilities of current UFC Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor—that feels kind of like a shame.
Seeing McGregor capture the featherweight title via a 13-second knockout on Saturday at UFC 194 was shocking—but almost entirely so because that was Jose Aldo out there, collapsing to the canvas like somebody tipped over a stack of bricks.
Aldo was the only 145-pound champion the Octagon had ever known. We’d seen him do things in fights that seemed impossible. He hadn’t lost in 18 appearances, dating back to 2005, and there he was, getting KOed with laughable ease by his more marketable, upstart challenger.
Four days after UFC 194, it appears he’s still hurting.
“It still is too hard to digest,” Aldo told Brazilian media outlet Combate on Monday (translation via MMA Fighting.com’s Guilherme Cruz). “We trained hard, did everything right, and the result wasn’t positive. But it’s part [of MMA]. It’s a sport and we have to accept [it].”
In the immediate wake of the loss, a few additional indignities were piled at Aldo’s feet. Cries of a fix rang out from some corners, with people implying that the greatest 145-pound MMA fighter in history had taken a dive.
For some reason, the UFC released the raw feed from Aldo’s locker room camera. The footage showed the devastated former champion returning to his dressing area after the defeat and slumping to the floor at the edge of the workout mats. Coaches and teammates tried in vain to console him. By Tuesday night, the video had been removed from YouTube.
Brazilian media even lobbed a few shots. As Bleacher Report’s Tom Sunderland noted:
McGregor took the UFC’s featherweight championship on Saturday after disposing of Aldo in record time for a title fight. The result led Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo to proclaim the “golden years” of Brazilian mixed martial arts are over, while newspaper O Globo called the loss “a stain on the career” of Aldo (h/t Irish Independent’s Declan Whooley).
Perhaps, most startling of all was how quickly the UFC moved the narrative away from an immediate rematch. With No. 2 featherweight Frankie Edgar waiting in the wings and McGregor—guaranteed a potentially more lucrative title shot if he decides to move up to lightweight—it felt as though the fight company flipped the page on Aldo at breakneck speed.
Color commentator Joe Rogan expressed disdain for the idea of an Aldo-McGregor rematch even before the UFC 194 PPV went off the air and again on Monday during his podcast. When UFC.com’s Megan Olivi caught up with company president Dana White backstage after the fight, the boss didn’t even consider the idea of giving Aldo a second crack at McGregor.
“It depends on what happens,” White said. “Obviously, if [Conor] vacated and went to [lightweight] we’d probably do Frankie Edgar vs. Jose for the [featherweight] title. If not, then we do Frankie Edgar [vs. McGregor], and Jose Aldo would fight somebody else.”
We understand why all of this is happening. McGregor is a financial and cultural juggernaut, and Edgar is no less worthy of taking a shot at him than anyone else. If McGregor does indeed move up to 155-pounds, it would create possibilities too enticing for the world’s largest MMA promoter to ignore.
Besides, if Aldo’s consolation prize turns out to be a bout against Edgar for a newly vacant 145-pound title—well, let’s just say things could be worse for him.
But we should also note that after carrying the featherweight division on his back for its entire UFC lifespan up to this point, denying Aldo an immediate rematch against McGregor feels a bit unseemly.
It also constitutes the UFC bucking its own trend on how it treats dominant champions after they lose.
It’s tough to imagine another titlist who had been so good for so long suddenly being cast as an afterthought. In fact, the exact opposite has mostly been true. In recent years, nearly every long-standing champion to suffer a loss has been promptly granted a chance to reclaim the gold.
Anderson Silva got a rematch at UFC 168 after getting knocked cold by Chris Weidman at UFC 162.
Ronda Rousey will almost certainly get the same after the domination she experienced from Holly Holm at UFC 193.
Former 2-time UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez is on the verge of another bout against current UFC Heavyweight Champion Fabricio Werdum after Velasquez showed up woefully ill-prepared to fight at Mexico City, Mexico’s high altitude at UFC 188.
Even Jon Jones—stripped of his heavyweight title just eight months ago after he was charged with felony hit-and-run—will get the opportunity to take the belt back from Daniel Cormier in his return fight.
So, why not Aldo?
The short answer seems to be that he’s simply being swallowed-up in the tidal wave of McGregor mania.
The longer, more complicated answer might be that Aldo has never been an easy champion for the UFC.
He’s long been an advocate of more equitable fighter pay and spoke out recently in favor of UFC athletes forming a union. He was bitingly critical of the fight company’s new exclusive apparel deal with Reebok and at first balked at the idea of an intravenous rehydration ban amid the UFC’s strictest health and safety rules.
It’s easy to imagine why, having ditched a champion who refused to toe the company line and simultaneously gaining a firebrand who promises to make them a lot of money, UFC brass might not be in a hurry to give Aldo a do-over against McGregor.
Why take the chance that he might win?
In some ways, it’s too bad we may never get the opportunity to see if UFC 194 represented a true changing of the guard at featherweight or just a lucky punch. But popular opinion seems to be that the UFC suddenly has the champion it wants in McGregor and isn’t going to risk losing him—even if he’s taking it to the woodshed in his own contract negotiation.
Maybe it’s just not financially appealing enough for the UFC to give Aldo a second shot at McGregor. Maybe it would be too much of a raw deal for Edgar. Maybe McGregor’s moving up to take a shot at the lightweight crown is something the organization simply can’t pass up.
But all that has very little to do with Aldo himself.
He’s been a great champion for this sport, so it’s only fitting that we pause to note that circumstances have conspired against him.
Does he deserve a rematch? Yes, absolutely, but in the end he committed the capital crime of losing his title to a man the UFC thinks will be its next great superstar. There’s no going back on that. It would just be too inconvenient to all the people who stand to profit.
And deserving a rematch has nothing to do with that.
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