So much for that 100 percent confidence.
Merely hours ago, UFC President Dana White’s answer was “yes” when MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani asked if he was 100 percent confident Jose Aldo would still defend his featherweight title against Conor McGregor at UFC 189.
Aldo had reportedly injured his ribs last week during a sparring session when he was kicked by a teammate. Initial reports from Combate, per MMAFighting.com, revealed that Aldo had fractured his ribs, putting the bout against McGregor in serious doubt.
However, the UFC released an official statement a day later, claiming Aldo’s ribs weren’t broken. According to the statement, Aldo’s official diagnosis—following a review of the CT scans—was a bone bruise and cartilage injury.
A contingency plan was mentioned to already be in place if Aldo was unable to compete on July 11. Chad Mendes was selected as the featherweight to take his place against McGregor in an interim title fight. Despite having a “Plan B,” the UFC seemed confident Aldo would still step up and take the fight.
When speaking with Helwani on Tuesday at the unveiling of the new Reebok uniforms, White was completely confident fight fans would get the bout they wanted to see:
Jose Aldo wants this fight. The injury that he has is the same injury [Donald] ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone just fought with. Cowboy Cerrone just fought with this injury. He got hit to the body, and he won the fight. Dan Henderson fought with this injury, and a lot of other fighters have fought with the same thing that Jose has right now.
Even UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Helwani he was “very confident” Aldo would still be fighting McGregor.
But the injury was too much for the 28-year-old featherweight champ to overcome. The UFC announced on Tuesday that Aldo had officially pulled out of his UFC 189 title fight with McGregor. The Irish challenger will now take on Mendes for the interim featherweight title.
MMA fighters and analysts wasted little time in posting their thoughts of the new UFC 189 main event on Twitter (Warning: NSFW Language).
Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com