No surprise here, but UFC Interim Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo was not happy to hear that he’s not Conor McGregor’s next opponent. So unhappy, in fact, that he told Combate (translation by MMAFighting) that he wants out of his UFC contract…and it spiraled from there.
Specifically, Aldo is taking issue with mixed signals he’s getting from the UFC. What happened was that on Saturday, UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby called to ask if Aldo would fight at UFC 205 on November 12th in New York. Aldo was OK with that if it was McGregor to unify the two featherweight titles, but if it was for a defense against Max Holloway or Anthony Pettis, who Shelby suggested, he’d rather wait until UFC 206 so he can get a full camp in. Being that the UFC needed a big main event for New York and Dana White had said that McGregor would have fight Aldo or be stripped, this made all the sense in the world.
Then the UFC announced McGregor’s shot at Eddie Alvarez’s lightweight title as the UFC 205 main event. We’ll let Aldo explain the rest:
After all this, I see I can’t trust any word from president Dana White, and who’s in charge of the promotion now is Conor McGregor. Since I’m not here to be an employee of McGregor, today I ask to cancel my contract with the UFC. When they offered me a fight with Frankie Edgar, Dana said that the winner would challenge McGregor or win the linear title, that he would lose his belt if he didn’t return to the featherweight division after his rematch with Nate Diaz. After being fooled so many times, I don’t feel motivated to fight in the UFC anymore.
When Combate caught up to Dana white at the UFC 205 press conference, White said he’d call Aldo to make everything right. Aldo would have none of it, and called Combate first, saying that he just wanted to retire, saying that “I don’t even want to fight MMA. I want to follow a career in another sport. That’s what I want.”
We’ll keep you updated on this one.
