Anthony Pettis Says He’d Fight Jose Aldo At 150 Pounds
UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis spent a long time trying to get the title shot when he joined from the WEC. A litany of injuries and a debut loss against Clay Guida hindered his progress, but ‘Showtime’ finally got his chance at UFC 164; a first round armbar later and Pettis is the boss at 155 pounds.
One fight that ‘Showtime’ is seemingly always linked to is with reigning featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo; the two were first scheduled to fight at 145 pounds, but injury forced Pettis from the UFC 163 card against ‘Scarface’. With the two champions seemingly on a collision course, Pettis laughs off recent accusations of being scared to fight Aldo:
“I laughed of what he said because it’s me who is challenging Aldo since the beginning.” Said Pettis to Combate.com vis Bloody Elbow “I would drop of my division to fight him. I’m definitely not afraid to face him. This fight is going to happen, it’s a matter of time. He has an opponent to come and I have a lot of time before my next fight, so there is no reason to give attention to him right now. We have more or less a year until this fight can happen.”
With ‘Showtime’ currently slated to coach opposite Gilbert Melendez on The Ultimate Fighter 20, and recovering from surgery on a torn ACL, a year would be a very optimistic time frame to put on fighting Aldo. Nonetheless, Pettis is confident that he will get his chance to face Aldo.
“This fight will happen at the lightweight division. To him there is no reason to stay at featherweight, which lacks competition to him. I’m already big to lightweight. I don’t need to suffer with the weight cut because I’m the champion. It makes sense for us fight at my division or we can fight in a 150 pounds catchweight.”
Pettis needs to get past ‘El Nino’ at the end of year event before he can think about fighting Aldo, but how great would it be to have a two-weight UFC champion? In all honesty, I just really want to see these two warriors battle each other. I wouldn’t mind if there wasn’t even a belt on the line, just the prospect of seeing two of the best champions in the lower weight classes clash would be epic.
The truth is that Pettis needs to come back 100% healthy and stay that way. Another injury or extended lay off period will not to ‘Showtime’, or the division any good at all. However talented a fighter is, extended absences from the sport will eventually mean that the more active guys will gain the ground on you. Lets see what 2014 brings for Pettis’ chances of fighting Aldo.
