Former UFC champ, featherweight GOAT Jose Aldo retires from MMA
One of MMA’s most popular figures and the former longtime featherweight champion, Jose Aldo appears to be hanging up the gloves and ending his MMA career
One of the greatest careers in the history of MMA and arguably the greatest fighter at bantamweight ever appears to be calling it a day.
Per a report from Combate, Jose Aldo will be retiring from the sport.
Aldo has reportedly entered into an agreement with the UFC to end his contract without making the final fight remaining on the deal. The UFC will grant him his release in order to retire, and Aldo has already been removed from the promotion’s rankings pool.
With Aldo free from the UFC, there is still the chance that he could venture into another combat sport such as boxing, like Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort have done before him, or into jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai.
Jose Aldo reportedly retires from MMA after nearly 20 years in the sport
Aldo made his professional MMA debut back in August 2004, scoring seven straight first-round finishes before a loss at lightweight. He’d rebound with three straight wins before joining the WEC.
Aldo would quickly build up his name with four straight finishes before stopping Cub Swanson in just eight seconds in a featherweight title eliminator at WEC 41. Then, at WEC 44, he defeated Mike Brown to capture the WEC featherweight title, beginning one of the longest reigns on top an MMA division.
Aldo successfully defended the belt against Urijah Faber and Manny Gamburyan before being promoted to the UFC, where he’d be crowned the inaugural UFC featherweight champion.
From there, Aldo continued to build on his reign of dominance, defeating Mark Hominick, Kenny Florian, Chad Mendes (twice), Frankie Edgar, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung and Ricardo Lamas.
Aldo’s reign came to a sudden end at UFC 194 in December 2015, getting knocked out by Conor McGregor in 13 seconds. Aldo would defeat Edgar at UFC 200 to become interim featherweight champion before being promoted to the undisputed king of the featherweights once again in late November 2016 not long after McGregor won the UFC lightweight title. Aldo, however, dropped the title once again, this time to Max Holloway, losing at UFC 212 and their subsequent UFC 218 rematch.
Aldo rebounded with a pair of Performance of the Night worthy wins against Jeremy Stephens and Renato Moicano before a loss to current featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 237.
Aldo then chose to drop to bantamweight. His divisional debut wouldn’t be a successful one, controversially losing a decision to Marlon Moraes, but he’d still receive the chance to fight for the then-vacant UFC bantamweight championship at UFC 251. He’d be violently finished by Petr Yan, however.
Aldo then racked up three straight decision victories against Marlon Vera, Pedro Munhoz and Rob Font before a loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 278 last month.
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