Aldo’s wife says Dana White pressured champ to fight at UFC 189

This Saturday Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor will finally meet inside the Octagon, barring any last-minute setbacks.

The last time these two men were scheduled to fight was back at UFC 189, however a rib injury late in camp forced Aldo out of the bout. Chad Mendes was selected as a replacement for Aldo, and the fight was deemed an interim championship fight.

There has been much speculation as to the extent of Aldo’s rib injury given that there were conflicting reports from doctors on whether or not the rib was broken.

Aldo’s wife spoke to Combate to discuss the injury, and reveal how the UFC attempted to pressure her husband into fighting despite the injury.

“Aldo was really injured, there’s video of it. “The guy threw a spinning kick, hit his left rib and broke it. ‘Dede’ [Andre Pederneiras, Nova Uniao head coach] called me half an hour after going to the hospital to ask me to stay calm because they didn’t know if it was broken. We didn’t want to frighten anyone because we didn’t know if he would fight or not. After a while, ‘Dede’ calls me and say it’s broken and he would need three or four weeks to get back. It was two weeks before the fight, we were desperate.”

“And Dana calling, talking about numbers,” she said. “‘It’s millions of dollars that you are losing. You have to fight. You never made this in your life’. Junior trying everything, doing everything. But they didn’t want to announce it because who else would they put in the fight? They spent millions on the fight. How would they say he broke his rib? They didn’t want to admit, they held it back, threw that on us, and we were saying it was broken.

It’s worth pointing out that Aldo’s wife may have slipped up by saying that the rib injury occurred on the left side of Aldo’s body, which Conor McGregor will most likely now target. In addition, McGregor is a southpaw, and his left body kick is one of his best weapons.