Aldo: I have a ‘friendly relationship’ with McGregor
Jose Aldo: I have a ‘friendly relationship’ with Conor McGregor
UFC interim featherweight champion Jose Aldo starting fighting in 2004, with two wins. He then won five straight fights in 2005, before moving up to lightweight and getting tapped.
He took off a few months, and starting in 2006, he went on one of the great runs in the sport’s history. He went undefeated for nearly a decade, successfully defended his belt a division record seven times, and was for a period named the best pound for pound fighter in the league.
When he was scheduled to fight the surging Conor McGregor, the UFC spent a record number of millions promoting the fight on a multi-city tour. McGregor hounded and taunted him relentlessly, at once point snatching his belt away.
McGregor won the fight in 14 seconds. A rematch between McGregor and Diaz at UFC 200 fell apart over media duties, and an interim title fight between Aldo and Frankie Edgar moved up. Aldo won, and now McGregor is faced with the option of defending the 145 belt or giving it up to fight lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez.
There is a widespread belief that the pair hate each other, but during a recent appearance on the Brazilian language “Revista Combate” Aldo said the pair are on good terms.
“It’s a friendly relationship,” said Aldo, as transcribed by Lucas Rezende for BE. “I don’t have a problem with him trying to promote himself. If we take a look at it money-wise, it was pretty good. I think there should be more fighters like him at featherweight. I’m not his friend, though. He can go his way and I can go mine.”
“I’ve seen him staring at a wall, looking at nothing with everyone around him trying to taunt him and he would just stand there, gazing. He’s a regular, mellow guy, but if he sees a camera or some Irish people, he transforms in such a way that makes you say to yourself ‘son of a bitch.'”
“One day we were hanging out and he said he was going to get the coffee and I said I wanted mine with sugar and he said something like ‘nice’. Most of the times we met, there was always someone recording us, though, so he had to keep his persona up. With no cameras, he changes completely.”