Jose Aldo hasn’t forgotten about being involved in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) interim title triangle.
In the middle of Tony Ferguson’s contract dispute, Aldo claimed he’d be fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov for the interim lightweight championship. “The Eagle” dismissed the featherweight champion and said he only wanted Ferguson.
“El Cucuy” settled his issues with the UFC and signed on to face Nurmagomedov in a title bout at UFC 209. That event is scheduled to go down on March 4 inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
During a social media Q&A (via MMAJunkie.com), Aldo’s long-time coach Andre Pederneiras said he felt Ferguson was ducking his fighter:
“We’re doing some negotiations with the UFC. It depends on some agreements. There’s this interest in moving up, and it could’ve happened now, with the challenge that Aldo issued to Khabib, who’s No. 1 in the (UFC) rankings. Turned out he didn’t take it. Then we issued it to Tony Ferguson, who’d talked a bunch of crap on the Internet two weeks before, saying even that he would fight Aldo. But then when we offered it, he ran and didn’t take it.”
Pederneiras said he understood why Nurmagomedov didn’t want to take the bout at that time. He wasn’t as understanding about Ferguson’s reasoning.
“They felt, on Khabib’s side, it wasn’t the right moment to take a fight like this. On Tony Ferguson’s side, I can’t say the same. Because if two weeks before you say you want to get the guy, that you can move down a weight division to fight the champion, and they offer the fight in your division and you say no? Then you don’t really have (much) to say.”
Aldo’s next bout is likely to be a unification match against interim champion Max Holloway. The two would’ve probably met next Saturday night (Feb. 11) if it wasn’t for Holloway’s swollen foot.
