WATCH | Jose Aldo gets into Jonathan Martinez’s face in intense faceoff ahead of UFC 301

Jose Aldo got into a heated faceoff with Jonathan Martinez ahead of his return to the Octagon at UFC 301 on Saturday.

Aldo is set to face Jonathan Martinez in the co-main event of UFC 301 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It marks his first MMA fight since August of 2022 when he lost a decision to Merab Dvalishvili. Since then, the UFC allowed Aldo to take boxing fights, as he had three of them, but he will fight out his contract on Saturday.

Ahead of his return fight at UFC 301, Jose Aldo and Jonathan Martinez had an intense faceoff as the Brazilian got right into his opponent’s face.

https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1785735313882747356

Aldo got right into Martinez’s face as the two had their foreheads touching. A UFC staff member had to pull Aldo away from Martinez at the end of the faceoff, showing how intense it was. The Brazilian is the betting underdog as he’s a +130 underdog on FanDuel.

UFC 301 will be Jose Aldo’s final fight on his UFC contract, and although he has talked about returning to boxing after this, he isn’t ruling out having more MMA fights after this.

“Rio is where I got my start,” Aldo said to the New York Post. “It’s where I live. It’s where I train. It’s where my friends are. So, obviously, very meaningful to be fighting here. But in the end, I want to get in there and do my best and show everyone what I’ve been doing… “When we started talking to the UFC about this, the possibility was doing a new contract, a new agreement. But what I really want to do right now is just show everyone where I’m at, how I’m doing, do this fight, and then we can sit down with the UFC and see how it’s gonna go.”

Jose Aldo enters this fight with an MMA record of 31-8. Before the loss to Dvalishvili, Aldo was on a three-fight winning streak as he beat Rob Font, Pedro Munhoz, and Marlon Vera all by decision.