Rumors of the demise of Ultimate Fighting Championship great Jose Aldo are
greatly exaggerated.
At UFC
278, former champ Aldo collided with surging contender Merab
Dvalishvili, and he fell short by decision. In his victorious
tour around media outlets, Dvalishvili declared on “The MMA Hour”
that Aldo told him, right after their fight, that he would retire.
Aldo himself has yet to respond to clarify or otherwise discuss
Dvalishvili’s statement. On Friday, Sherdog spoke to Aldo’s head
coach Andre
Pederneiras, who guaranteed the former featherweight champion
is not done yet.
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“No way,” Pederneiras exclaimed. “It’s not uncommon that high-level
fighters say they are done after a loss, once I had many high-level
fighters last 30 years, I can’t tell you how many times I´ve heard
that after a loss. The fact is that, unlike many other top
champions that finished their career only losing, being out of the
rankings, we can see that Aldo continues performing at the highest
level of the sport.”
Pederneiras had more to say about Aldo’s bout, especially when it
came to the officiating. The head coach did not believe referee
Jason Herzog gave Aldo a fair chance in the fight, as he believed
the fighters should have been separated for stalling. Dvalishvili
failed to land a single takedown in the entire fight, which led to
several stalemates against the fence.
“That defeat, in my opinion, was pretty much questionable,” ‘Dede’
stated. “I’m not saying I was robbed, but a second round like that,
where the referee accepted one fighter staying absolutely stalling
the opponent in the cage. If all the refs allow that kind of
behavior, imagine what would happen to our sport? Nobody wants to
see that s—. I have all respect for Jason Herzog, but he had the
same attitude, both in Aldo and [Ketlen
Vieira]’s fight.
Herzog was not the lone official who drew the ire of the Nova Uniao
head. Judge Michael Bell scored the bout 30-27 for Dvalishvili, and
Pederneiras vehemently disagreed.
“The sick guy who gave the first round to Merab has no idea about
MMA,” an exasperated Pederneiras said. “He is probably a wrestler.
If they believe that holding a fight in the cage is a sport, they
should stop hiring strikers and just hire wrestlers.”
The coach did make sure to note that even though he was not happy
with the official handling of the match, he had no issue with
Dvalishvili or his approach.
“I have nothing bad to say about Merab, he did a strategy using the
weapons he had and the rules. The fact is that the bantamweight
division is one of the toughest in the UFC nowadays. If you get all
ten top-ranked guys facing each other, everybody could have losses
and wins depending on the style matchups and the day of the fights.
The fact is that there are a lot of top guys, and Aldo is still
inside that group.”
After the rumor of Aldo’s retirement spread, many Brazilian fans
started to ask the so-called “People’s Champion” to take his
retirement fight in Rio de Janeiro in January at UFC 283. Fans and
media alike started to posit the names that Aldo could face should
he only have one more fight. While ex-champ T.J.
Dillashaw’s name came up, ultimately the consensus believed
fellow veteran Dominick
Cruz would be the best opponent in the last fight of Aldo’s
contract. When asked about the possibility of Aldo fighting in Rio,
Pederneiras was not ready to take a stand.
“We already asked [about] T.J. [and] Dominick in [the] U.S.A., but
unfortunately, they were not available for [the] UFC’s agenda.
After all, Aldo has just returned from his last fight, which didn’t
go the way he planned. For now, I cannot tell you, for sure, if he
will fight [at] UFC Rio,” Pederneiras concluded.