Jose Aldo Calls Himself The Best UFC Fighter Of All Time
UFC interim featherweight champion Jose Aldo has been the subject of a seemingly endless amount of MMA headlines lately, and his distrust for his employers has lead to him asking for his release in the aftermath of Conor McGregor‘s announced lightweight title fight against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205.
The longtime former champ has frequently spoken out over fighter pay in the past, but when he was passed over for a rematch with ‘The Notorious’ again, Aldo decided that he had had enough with the numbers-focused decision making process of the world’s foremost MMA outfit. He’s supposed to meet up with Dana White and company next week to discuss his fighting future, where he revealed he is willing to throw his next fight in order to get released.
So if we have truly seen the last of Aldo in the Octagon like he proclaimed, his position in the history of a company he was nearly always at odds with should become a frequently discussed subject. But if you ask the pound-for-pound mainstay, he said he believes he’s the best while recently speaking in his native Rio de Janeiro via MMA Fighting:
“In the entire promotion’s (history)? For sure,” Aldo said. “Of course, people will be partial, but I put myself among the best in history. When I said back then I was the best fighter people criticized me a lot, and I say it again. To me, brother, I’m the best.”
As for his legacy, Aldo focused on being a champion who was the same person as he was before the UFC, unchanged by the bright lights and trappings of the Octagon:
“(I hope to be remembered as) an excellent athlete, an excellent fighter. For everything I’ve done in there, always giving my best. And for being the champion I always was,” he continued. “I entered (the UFC) as ‘Scarface’ and left as people’s champion. That makes me proud. I like doing what I always did. I never changed my head because I was the champion. I want to leave as the guy that became champion and continued being the same person.”
Some believe that the UFC could easily walk away from the discontented Aldo because he was never the pay-per-view (PPV) draw that they’ve come to love in the form of Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey, but Aldo challenged the media to tell him another fighter outside of those two and Brock Lesnar that truly outsold him in terms of buyrate:
“And people say I don’t sell pay-per-views. If you compare, who have they created who can sell well? They brought Brock Lesnar from WWE, who brought another audience, Ronda (Rousey) came and brought another audience. Conor is a guy that sells well. The only one. I don’t see anyone who sells more than me. Give me a name.”
If he does indeed continue his UFC career, Aldo has been linked to a fight with former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, who recently made his successful featherweight debut by submitting Charles Oliveira at UFC on FOX 20 in August.
‘Showtime’ was scheduled to meet Aldo for the featherweight strap in 2013, yet the way he was dealt with then (he would have had to vacate the 145-pound title to fight Pettis at 155 pounds) played a part in his current lack of motivation for fighting:
“Is Pettis a good offer? When he was the champion, and had to sell pay-per-views, he never sold more than me or anyone else,” Aldo said. “”When I beat Frankie Edgar the first time, (Pettis’) manager came after me backstage, following me and saying ‘let’s make this fight happen.’ When we got to the UFC, I was the one getting f**ked. I don’t want this. I’m trying to help, and I’m not being helped. It’s not a matter of fighting or not fighting. I’m not excited to fight now.”
