Jose Aldo didn't watch UFC 189 but warns Conor McGregor, 'I'm coming'
UFC 189 may have turned out to be one of the biggest and most exciting events in history, but the man originally set to headline didn't even watch it on television from home in Brazil. During a recent press conference, UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo told reporters that while his coach Andre Pederneiras did watch and relay information and fight accounts to him afterwards, the fighter himself wasn't interested enough to check the event out live.
"It's funny. When my friends aren't fighting, I don't even watch it," he said from his gym.
"[Pederneiras] talked to me about it, said it's cool, that it was a good fight for us. He saw his game, that Chad was winning while he had gas, and that they shouldn't have stopped the fight. But when I'm not fighting, I don't read or watch anything."
Perhaps watching would have been too painful for Aldo -- who would have likely gotten his biggest stage and payday, ever. The UFC's longest-reigning world champion certainly wanted to be there, in the Octagon.
"I like those big events, and I was training well. We asked for a deadline to try to recover and fight injured, but I wasn't recovering as expected. I still feel the pain. I would have fought if I could., but I couldn't," he explained.
"I was upset with this injury. This was one of the biggest fights in the history, and we had all the promotion, everything that was needed. I've never been through something like this, especially for a fight that everybody wanted to see. This fight would bring a lot of money."
His coach went on to tell reporters that the fighter wants to resume training in about two weeks, but that it will be up to doctors to clear him, first. You know, actual doctors doing actual examinations on him.
With their optimism, however, the team doesn't expect that Frankie Edgar will get a chance to fight Conor McGregor before Aldo is healthy enough to do so. Of course, McGregor beat Chad Mendes for the interim featherweight title in the UFC 189 main event, last Saturday.
Whenever he does finally meet McGregor, Aldo doesn't care where it happens. In fact, he'd be game to fight in Dublin -- McGregor's home turf.
"It would be great, I don't see any problem with that," Aldo insisted.
"They can say whatever they want. If they don't say it in Portuguese, I won't understand a word so I don't care. I'm anxious to fight already."
Aldo may not hear the trash talk from outside, but he certainly had words of warning for the newly-minted interim champ. "Get ready, I'm coming," he promised McGregor.
"He can say whatever he wants, but his weapons are nowhere near what I'm showing him."
