Andre
Pederneiras, coach of Ultimate Fighting Championship great Jose Aldo, had
a few thoughts on his fighter’s legacy.
After his loss to Aiemann
Zahabi at UFC 315, Hall of Famer Jose Aldo
decided to hang up his gloves. A decision certainly motivated by
suffering three defeats in his last four appearances—with two of
them
controversially
scored. The Brazilian received ample criticism at how the
twilight of his career had been handled, with faithful fans
objecting to his acceptance of three opponents who made little
sense from a legacy perspective. Pederneiras revealed to Sherdog
that he always made the decisions on taking fights alongside Aldo
and his wife Viviane.
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“First, I need to explain what goes through Aldo’s head,” the Nova
Uniao coach explained. “There is no such thing as fighting just for
the sake of fighting, fighting to get the check and go home. For
Aldo, the only thing that made sense was to keep fighting to get
the belt. After the loss to Merab
[Dvalishvili] at UFC 278, the offers we received from the UFC
were not good enough to get him into a title fight, and since
former champions [Henry]
Cejudo and Dominick
[Cruz] were unavailable due to injuries, all we could do was
accept the ranked athletes, and that’s what we did.”
Count “Dede” among those who disagreed with the result of the
Zahabi fight. Despite that, he felt that Aldo was planning on
retiring at night’s end, win or lose.
“I was almost certain that this would happen regardless of victory
or defeat,” Pederneiras projected.
Even though Aldo left his gloves in the center of the Octagon, it
is not the first time he has retired. The vaunted coach is not
entirely certain that this retirement will stick either.
“It’s hard to say that a guy of Aldo’s caliber doesn’t think about
coming back because he comes here to my gym and beats the crap out
of everyone. It’s hard to take a guy of Aldo’s level and think that
one day he’ll wake up and say, you know what, I’m going back there.
Obviously, he will turn 39 this year, and as time goes by, the
dynamics change, especially in the lighter divisions where speed,
cardio and strength have such an important role,” Pederneiras
offered.
When asked about the greatest joy, sadness and emotion he has
experienced alongside his main champion, the coach did not need
long to come up with answers.
“The greatest joy was when he fought for the UFC title with
Mark
Hominick in Canada with 55,000 people shouting against him and
he won the belt; the greatest emotion was when he beat Jeremy
Stephens after two losses, I had to hold back tears,” he
admitted. “And obviously, the greatest sadness was when he took
that punch from [Conor]
McGregor after months of promotion. Both threw the punch at the
same time and landed. But Conor got there first and in a better
position. If Aldo had gotten there first, the one who would have
been on the ground would have been Conor, but God wanted it that
way.”
Going over the career of his pupil made the Nova Uniao founder
wistful, who noted that next year, it will be his third decade as a
manager and coach.
“I am the longest-serving coach and manager in the UFC, since I
took Rafael
Carino to the UFC in 1996. Next year will be 30 years,” the
coach remarked.
With so much time in the game, and so many great fighters to come
and go through his doors, it is impossible to ignore Pederneiras’
achievements. However, he does not want to be placed on a pedestal,
nor did he wish to compare his legacy to other renowned coaches
like Carlson Gracie, Rudimar Fedrigo and Abdulmanap
Nurmagomedov.
The coach was more than willing to boast about his fighters’
accomplishments, however, saying, “I don’t know about the numbers
of other trainers, but I did 15 world champions: Vitor
Ribeiro, Marlon
Sandro, Eduardo
Dantas, Jose Aldo,
Renan
Barao, Willamy
Freire, Thales
Leites, Alexandre
Pantoja, Bruno
Azevedo, Luis
Ramos>, Hernani
Perpetuo, Poliana
Botelho, Felipe
Froes, Werlleson
Martins, Wagnney
Fabiano. To date, my athletes have fought for the UFC title 20
times and won 12 times. We lost eight. In total, in world events,
Nova Uniao has fought for or put at stake 62 world titles and won
41 times, we lost 19 and drew twice.”