There was a time not that long ago when Jose Aldo was considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters or all time. He held the championship in his weight division for nearly 10 years and was unbeaten in that time. They had kind of run out of people to throw at him but then a guy you might have heard of named Conor McGregor came along and completely stole the show. There was a lot of hype leading into this fight and this was when Conor was at his peak as far as ability and trash-talking was concerned.
We expected on hell of a tough fight for both fighters but instead we saw a guy who hadn't lost to anyone in a decade get KO'd so fast that I actually missed the entire fight because I was in the bathroom.
I'm pretty sure it was literally the first punch of the fight and the crowd went absolutely mental although for me, I would have liked to have seen quite a bit more. Something really terrible happened after this fight and Aldo just completely fell apart. I don't know if it emotions or the concussion or what but he has not been at all dominant since that ill-fated day and he even changed weight categories somewhere along the way as well, only to find that he didn't really fit in there either.
His record hasn't been terrible, so to speak, since getting shock KO'd by Conor, but it has basically been like this: He either gets a boring decision victory over someone that most people haven't ever heard of or he gets finished by someone you have heard of. With 2 losses against Holloway, one vs Yan, and another loss to Volkanovski, things have been pretty rough for the once seemingly unstoppable Brazilian.
His last fight took place in 2022 vs Dvalishvili and it was a rather inconsequential loss on points for Aldo there as well.
His return at UFC 301 sees him in kind of a co-main-event position and I'll be honest with you, I am not really all that excited about almost anything that is happening on this card. I may not even go out to watch it.
It is taking place in Brazil and I guess I am glad to see that they are starting to do events there again. Brazil likely has the 2nd highest participation in MMA globally, yet they very rarely get any events there because, I guess because having the events in USA is more profitable for UFC. This might be the reason why the card is rather lackluster for a Pay Per View though. There is one championship match and honestly, despite being a big fan of the sport and UFC, I don't recognize a lot of the names on the card.
For Aldo though, this is a very important match for him and I think that UFC kind of stacked the deck in his favor putting him up against American Jonathon Martinez. Martinez is a standing striker for the most part and this bodes well for Aldo because his skill set is more all over the place than this, or at least historically speaking it was.
For Aldo, he doesn't appear to have ever really fully recovered from that shock loss to McGregor and if he were to lose this one in his home territory of Brazil it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. There has been no talk about Jose wishing to retire but I really hope that he doesn't get shamed in front of a home crowd. Aldo has been around for a long time and is definitely one of the "OG's" of the UFC.
I do think that his time in the sport has been coming to an end for a while now as his former glory seems further and further behind him each time I see him in the octagon. I hope he can win this fight and retire on his own terms. If he doesn't win, I would imagine that the UFC will just start using him as a stepping stone for up and coming Bantamweight talent until he is totally used up and Dana will send him out to pasture.
With a win, especially an impressive win, it could propel him back into the limelight because he still looks the part and is very fit for someone 37 years old. Not many fighters continue this late into their years and if Aldo wins, it might actually be beneficial for him to leave his gloves in the octagon in front of a sold out crowd. We'll have to wait and see I suppose!