Report: Jose Aldo Wants Out of His UFC Contract

Last night, it was announced that UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor will be receiving a crack at Eddie Alvarez’s lightweight title. The two will share the main event honors of UFC 205.

While this news garnered massive amounts of excitement from the fans, it did not go over so well with a number of McGregor’s peers. One fighter who appears to be particularly upset with the announcement of McGregor’s lightweight title shot is Jose Aldo.

Aldo, who is the former undisputed UFC featherweight champion, lost the divisional title to McGregor last December, hitting the canvas just 13 seconds into their long-anticipated showdown.

Under normal circumstances, Aldo’s incredibly long reign as featherweight champion probably would have earned him an immediate rematch with McGregor. As we know, however, the circumstances surrounding McGregor’s career are rarely normal.

Instead of defending his featherweight title in a rematch with Aldo, the Irish champion spent his first two bouts of 2016 in the welterweight division, where he went 1-1 over the course of two bouts with Nate Diaz, losing the first and evening the score in the second. At the same time, Jose Aldo was crowned the interim featherweight champion McGregor’s stead, winning that title in a bout with Frankie Edgar at UFC 200.

With McGregor and Diaz’s score settled, and the interim title wrapped around his waist, Aldo was evidently optimistic that he’d have the opportunity to even the score with his Irish nemesis.

Now that he knows this won’t be the case, however, the Brazilian striker is livid. So livid, in fact, that’s he’s asked out of his UFC contract. Aldo made this startling request in an interview with Brazilian publication Combate (via Bloody Elbow).

“Dana [White] always said Conor [McGregor] couldn’t hold two belts in two different divisions and he had also denied the [Eddie Alvarez] fight last week,” Aldo said. “After all this, I see I can’t trust a single word that comes out of Dana White’s mouth and that Conor McGregor is the one really in charge of the company. Since I’m not here to be McGregor’s employee, I ask them to cancel my UFC contract.”

“The biggest proof that Conor runs the UFC is that when I was the champion, they wouldn’t let me go up to fight Anthony Pettis unless I vacated my belt,” Aldo continued. “With Conor, they let him do whatever he wants. I understand that he sells lots of tickets, but it gets to a point it stops being a sport and it becomes a circus. I don’t want to fight with the UFC, I just want to go on with my life and they can go on with theirs.”

While it’s difficult to say if the UFC will be willing to let a fighter of Aldo’s caliber go, you can be certain the the folks over at Bellator would love to scoop up the long-time UFC champion. Do you think Aldo’s UFC contract will be cancelled? Sound off, PENN nation!