Jose Aldo retires from MMA at age 36 with one fight left on UFC contract
Perhaps the greatest Brazilian mixed martial arts fighter to ever do it, Jose Aldo ‘Junior’, has sadly for us fans, officially retired from MMA today, September 18, 2022, just nine days following his 36th birthday.
Many of us were left believing the featherweight goat to have one fight left in him, considering he had a single fight left on his contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Well, Aldo decided to call it a career after the most successful featherweight career in MMA history, as well as a very successful run as a bantamweight.
Aldo, despite having one fight left, has reached an agreement with the UFC to hang his gloves up for good.
Original story published by Combate.
There were rumors of Aldo fighting one last time at UFC 283 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but it appears the ‘King of Rio’ has decided to call it quits in attempt to pursue other combat sports; most likely boxing, as the former champion has previously stated an interest in.
Aldo has accomplished merely everything in the sport of MMA, the only thing he hasn’t done is become a two-division champion. Had he began his bantamweight run a tad sooner, or had the UFC allowed him to go up to lightweight during his featherweight title reign, as he wanted to do, he may have achieved that too.
After a 25-1 run at 145 lbs, seeing him victorious in three WEC title fights and seven UFC title fights, Aldo would fall off following his defeat to future, now former two-division champion Conor McGregor.
But, following his defeat to Petr Yan in their vacant bantamweight title clash, a fight he would have won had it been three rounds, he’d go 3-1 prior to retiring, most recently defeating Marlon Vera (UD), Pedro Munhoz (UD), and Rob Font (UD), losing to Merab Dvalishvili in his last fight at UFC 278.
Aldo did stuff all 16 of Dvalishvili’s takedown attempts, becoming the first and only man to not be taken down by the Georgian in his ten UFC bouts. And Dvalishvili improved his win streak to eight-straight with this victory, the longest win streak in UFC bantamweight history.
There’s no shame in losing to someone like that.
On the contrary, we all thought we would get one more Jose Aldo fight before he retired, and it’s too bad it appears we’ll never see him fight in the UFC again. We all knew this day would be coming soon, and unfortunately, that day has come.
Aldo stated the following to Dvalishvili once their bout ended:
“That was my last run to (the) title, I guess I’m done.”
Thank you Jose Aldo for your long, illustrious, legendary career, it was certainly a pleasure to watch.
Jose Aldo retires with a professional record of 31-8 after an 18-year career, eight years of which he spent atop the 145 lb division in both WEC and UFC.
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