UPDATED: Jose Aldo Wants To Fight At UFC 189, X-Ray Appears To Show Broken Rib

UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo may well be out of UFC 189 after reportedly fracturing his rib in training, putting in serious jeopardy his huge UFC 189 title defense against Conor McGregor. ‘The Notorious’ and the Brazilian champion have shared a long and heat-filled rivalry, with the UFC doing their best to promote the bout to the fullest extent. All of this could now have been a total waste of resources.

Aldo’s coach Andre Pedernaires told Combate, via MMAFighting.com, that Aldo was heartbroken the moment he was injured, and still wants to fight at UFC 189:

“He cried. He wants this fight bad, everybody invested a lot in this. I was with him the whole afternoon. He’s heartbroken. He wants to fight anyway. Now we have to wait for the exam results. Aldo is in deep pain.”

“If the fracture is really confirmed, Aldo will have to stop training, do nothing for three or four weeks until it’s fixed, and then he would be able to do any exercise without forcing his rib,” the coach said. “And then he would need a normal time to do a training camp: three months. I believe this fight wouldn’t happen before October.”

UPDATE

News from Globo TV Rio via Twitter appears to confirm the worse possible scenario:

EXCLUSIVE :The Hose Aldo x-ray of suspected broken rib via Globo TV Rio pic.twitter.com/K9jROBaBIW

— superCalo (@superCalo) June 24, 2015

This comes as terrible news for both the promotion, and fans that have been waiting in eager anticipation for so long. The bout was first announced some six months ago, so the martial arts world already had to wait a lot longer than they normally would to see the fight.

If Aldo is indeed carrying a fractured rib, as it sounds a lot like that, the UFC doctors will not clear him to fight. The injury crisis is continuous in such a hard sport, it’s time that we recognized that this isn’t a bug, it’s a way of life for MMA (mixed martial arts) fans.

There is a glimmer of hope that Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor will still happen, but it’s a thin one. We’ll keep you updated to any big news as it breaks, here at LowKickMMA.

UPDATED UPDATE

The photo that Globo posted of Ald’s broken rib from an ‘anonymous source’ has been found on the forum of Australian site Seabreeze in a post dated all the way back to 2008 (thanks to Lowkick member SMP), signifying that some serious shady business may be going on.

More on the questionable scenario as it develops.