Although Jose Aldo claims to have had one of his best training camps yet, the UFC featherweight champion is talking into his match an injured man.
As noticed by ESPN’s Brett Okamoto during pre-fight media scrums on Thursday, Aldo was sporting a cut over his left eye.
It seems the gash still has stitches in it, but Aldo’s camp apparently didn’t deem the cut bad enough to pull out of the fight, which is now less than 48 hours away.
When asked about the injury by Okamato, the Brazilian star claimed that it won’t prevent him from stepping into UFC 156 and defending his title:
Have to pass this on, Aldo had a small cut over his left eye. Stitches in. I asked him about it, said was nothing. No concern. — Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) February 1, 2013
This could be a problem for Aldo during his main event fight with Frankie Edgar, as the former lightweight champion could intentionally or unintentionally open up that cut with punches.
Should that happen, it could cause Aldo’s relatively small injury to quickly become a major hinderance.
For one reason or another, Aldo has been extremely injury prone ever since joining Zuffa in the aftermath of the UFC/WEC merger.
Before he could even make the first defense of his new belt at UFC 125, Aldo suffered a neck injury (via ESPN) that scrapped him from a bout with Josh Grispi.
That resulting layoff came back to hurt the champion at UFC 129 in Toronto, as a fading Aldo barely survived a horrendous beatdown at the hands of Canadian fighter Mark Hominick.
Even this weekend, Aldo is returning off another injury from last September—a motorcycle accident (via MMA Weekly) that caused him a broken foot (after extra training).
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