MMA legend Jose Aldo continues his return to fighting when he faces Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 315 on Saturday night coming off a very controversial loss in October.
Aldo (32-9) lost a controversial split-decision to Mario Bautista at UFC 307. The loss was so badly received by fans that blame Bautista for a lackluster fight that he hasn’t been booked for a fight since.
Aldo wasn’t happy with the fight, the reaction, really anything stemming from the bout.
“I was f*cking annoyed. I was pissed off at myself. It’s not disrespect to the opponent, he went out there and did his job, but the thing is I (couldn’t) talk about fights,” Aldo told reporters including Cageside Press through a translator on Wednesday.
“You go into the fight to do your job, you train so hard, I’ve been doing this for a long time. People expect that of me. There’s a style, there’s an aggressiveness, win or lose, you deliver.”
Aldo was so upset by the loss, and his performance, that he was unable to stomach watching or talking about fights.
“No matter what happens, you’re supposed to take your fight to the opponent, and there’s a lot of stuff that happened. I went out there, I had all these plans, you think about the studying of the opponent. Instead I stand there like a dumbass against the fence and nothing happened,” he said.
“I was pissed. Everybody was pissed. I couldn’t talk about fights for a long time.”
It’s not the first time Aldo had a performance he couldn’t accept. He dropped his UFC featherweight title to Conor McGregor at UFC 194 in 2015 in a 13-second loss.
“I had a very, very important loss against Conor,” he told Cageside Press.
“Still the problem there was, first of all I lost, and no that fight never developed. Against Mario I was ready. I was prepared, I’m better, there were so many things I could do. I didn’t do any of them.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Jose Aldo above. He takes on Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 315 on Saturday night.
