https://youtu.be/mGTgS43ErTw
As noted, Jose Aldo publicly requested a release from his UFC contract and declared his intentions to retire shortly after the news regarding Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez was announced for UFC 205 on Tuesday.
Since the reigning interim UFC Featherweight Champion made the initial announcement, there has been a lot of discuussion within the MMA community regarding Aldo’s decision, including those who question how serious the Brazilian MMA star is.
On Wednesday, Aldo’s current and former coach both spoke publicly and made it clear that the longtime face of UFC’s Featherweight division couldn’t be more serious about his decision.
Featured above is a clip from Wednesday’s edition of “TUF Talk” that was posted on the official UFC On FOX YouTube channel that shows one of Aldo’s coaches, Ronaldo Candido, addressing how serious Aldo is about wanting to get out of his UFC contract and retire due to the way UFC has been handling his career since he lost his first and still his only defeat inside the Octagon to Conor McGregor last year.
Additionally, Aldo’s longtime head MMA coach and manager, Andre Pederneiras spoke about the topic during an interview with Brazilian MMA outlet Combate on Wednesday. He offered the following take on the situation involving Aldo and the UFC:
“I think Dana and the new owners have to understand that there’s a completely unsatisfied employee who doesn’t want to continue,” Pederneiras said. “If that was in Brazil and a guy said ‘boss, I want to leave,’ I’d say ‘Ok, I can’t hold you.’ The contract we have in the UFC, ‘boss, I want to leave,’ the answer is ‘no, you’ll be stuck with me, you might not do anything, but you can’t leave here.’ Is that something nice?
“I think it creates dissatisfaction, and he will want to go to court. He would have to go to court to cut this contract. And the damage a dissatisfied person, someone like Aldo, talking sh*t to everyone about a lot of things, I think the company wouldn’t want a guy like this every day in the media talking trash. Since the guy doesn’t want to do it, let him leave! ‘I just want to leave, I don’t want to stay here anymore, I don’t want to fight here. I don’t want to be in anymore.’ We don’t want a war, we don’t want a fight, we don’t want to talk bad about anyone. We only want the right to say ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s not about money, I don’t want to be here anymore.’”
“He was already pissed off with the situation of being left aside without an answer,” Pederneiras said. “You can’t do that with someone like Aldo. You can do that to someone who just entered the UFC now, but not with a guy that went undefeated for 10 years, not with a guy that was the first and only champion until he lost the belt in a 13-second situation, and earned his rematch, was fooled and it didn’t happen. I think the company has its financial side – I have a company and will always think on the financial side – but I won’t lie to my employee. If there’s no way to do it, there’s no way to do it. I won’t tell everybody something, put in the news for everyone to see, and then be caught in a lie.”
H/T to Guilherme Cruz of MMAFighting.com for translating the above Andre Pederneiras quotes from Portuguese to English.
