Former two-time UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo recently sparred with Olympic boxer Lindolfo Delgado and left respected boxing coach Robert Garcia impressed with how he handled himself in the ring.
A former IBF super-featherweight champion turned coach, Garcia revealed recently that Aldo had been training with him as he looked to sharpen up his boxing skills.
He wants to box, but it’s all up to the UFC, I guess, Garcia told boxing reporter Eli Seckbach last week. I don’t think they give him the ok to box, but he wants to learn some boxing.
Garcia, who has trained a long list of boxing champions, including Miguel Angel Garcia, Fernando Vargas, Brandon Rios, Kelly Pavlik and Antonio Margarito to name but a few, has now been working with Aldo for a couple of weeks, and in recent days he decided to test his skills in a sparring session.
Aldo was pitted against Lindolfo Delgado, a 22-year-old up-and-comer who boxed for Mexico in last year’s Olympic Games and has since gone on to compile a 2-0 professional record this year.
[Jose Aldo] did better than I expected, Garcia said afterward. His reflexes were really good, his vision – he was seeing the punches. Obviously [Delgado] is an Olympian with a good jab, so [Aldo] has to get hit but the reflexes were there. His stance was pretty much always in a boxing stance, he wasn’t crossing his feet or anything like that. He tried and did really good.
I don’t know if it’s from the last two weeks that we have been working together or he’s just natural also. He could be natural. I liked it.
“>
It’s not too much of a surprise that Aldo was able to hold his own as not only is he an elite MMA fighter and multiple-time champion with a 26-3 record, but he is also known to be one of the sports best technical boxers, and indeed is believed to have had four amateur boxing matches earlier in his career.
At his peak, the 30-year-old went undefeated in 18 fights and successfully defended his UFC featherweight title seven times before a stunning 13 second KO loss to Conor McGregor in 2015.
