Aldo’s Coach To UFC: Let Him Leave!
After hearing the news that featherweight champion Conor McGregor would be fighting lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez at November 12’s UFC 205 from New York yesterday, interim 145-pound titleholder Jose Aldo, one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, asked to be released from his UFC contract, and it looks as if he was quite serious with his request.
Today (September 28, 2016), Aldo’s longtime head coach, Andre Pederneieras, said that the Brazilian may look to take the promotion to court:
“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, according to MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz, translating from Portuguese. “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 s— 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.’”
After knocking out Aldo in just 13 seconds last December, McGregor took two fights at welterweight against Nate Diaz and will now fight Alvarez, making it obvious why Aldo is upset. Aside from that, fighter treatment has long been a growing issue within the UFC, and an issue that Aldo has often spoke about.
Do you expect to see “Scarface” actually leave the UFC?
