Rogan: Why McGregor is the featherweight G.O.A.T.
Joe Rogan: “The reality is, Aldo’s the best ever but Conor KO’d him.”
Jose Aldo started fighting in 2004 and about a year and seven fights later, suffered his first loss, and it was at lightweight. Nine fights, no defeats, and five years later in 2009, he won the WEC featherweight belt, before the UFC had a division.
He defended the WEC belt twice and in 2010 the UFC acquired the promotion and Aldo’s belt became the UFC title. Aldo defended it successfully seven times. Then in 2005, he got knocked out by Conor McGegor in 13 seconds. McGregor never defended the title; he instead went to welterweight for a couple of unexpected fights with Nate Diaz, and then won the lightweight belt. He may never defend that either, and instead preparing to box Floyd Mayweather.
Aldo called the loss a fluke and bounced back with a win over Frankie Edgar for an interim title that eventually became the full belt. Then Max Holloway acquired an interim belt. Saturday night there was a unification fight, and the ending was no fluke – Holloway beat Aldo fair and square, fair and octagon.
At first glance comparing a champ who never defended a belt vs. one who inaugurated the division and defended it seven times across five years, always landing near or at the top of the P4P list seems obvious. However, on his latest Fight Companion podcast, Joe Rogan argues that McGregor, not Aldo, is the division G.O.A.T., and offers the simplest argument why.
Jose’s devastated. He’s devastated,” said Rogan, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “It is what it is. This is fighting, people win and people lose. The sport, ultimately, it depends upon these sort of fights. It depends upon these all-time greats, like Aldo, facing some guy who’s got the solution to what that guy presents and that’s what Aldo did tonight. He went out there with all of his championship mettle and he laid it all on the line and he fought his best and his puzzle got solved by the new breed. . .
Max Holloway beat the s*** out of him. He beat him in a way that no one’s ever beat him. Conor only beat him because he caught him. Max Holloway beat him down. He beat him down.
[McGregor]’s the best ever. You have to say he’s the best ever even if he never fights featherweight again. Why? Because he KO’d the best ever. The reality is, Aldo’s the best ever but Conor KO’d him. You couldn’t say without the Aldo fight that Conor was the best ever because if you look at all the different people that both of them fought, you’re like, ‘Wow it’s really close, it’s really interesting, but Aldo has more fights.’ But then once they actually fight, that’s it. That’s all that matters. So you’ve got to give it to him.
People will fight against it, ‘No, because Aldo was the champion for so many years.’ You’re 100-percent right. His body of work is much more impressive and there’s always going to be an asterisk next to Conor because that was just this one time he fought for the title at 145, KO’d Aldo, and was like ya’ll be cool, I’m out of here.