Jose Aldo taken off of UFC roster – effectively retired

Benny A. King

Jose Aldo put on a defensive minded performance at UFC 278 against rising prospect Merab Dvalishvili. Dvalishvili comes from a wrestling background yet he struggled to take down Aldo barely edging out a decision win.

Following the bout, the two engaged in a conversation kneeling in the Octagon. It was a time of passing the baton between Aldo, a legend, and Dvalishvili, a hot prospect as per Dvalishvili who told MMA Hour

“Actually when he was down, and then I go to like, shake his hand and tell him, thank you so much for fight and I go to respect to him and he was down and I tried to help him. And he was told me that he say, then then he said: ‘that means that this is my, my last fight because that was my muscle.”

“He said, that was it was my last run to title’. And then he said, ‘I guess it’s I’m done’. You know, it’s Wow. There was very, very emotional moments. That’s why I was talking to him when he was on the knee like because I said, You’re amazing, like you did so much already in the sport, you know, have nothing to prove and you are legendary king”

After Dvalishvili revealed that Aldo was done, Aldo’s longtime coach Andre Pederneiras refuted his retirement saying:
“No way,” Pederneiras exclaimed.
“I can’t tell you how many times I´ve heard that after a loss. The fact is that, unlike many other top champions that finished their career only losing, being out of the rankings, we can see that Aldo continues performing at the highest level of the sport.”

“I have nothing bad to say about Merab, he did a strategy using the weapons he had and the rules. The fact is that the bantamweight division is one of the toughest in the UFC nowadays. If you get all ten top-ranked guys facing each other, everybody could have losses and wins depending on the style matchups and the day of the fights. The fact is that there are a lot of top guys, and Aldo is still inside that group.”

But despite all that Aldo was removed from the roster earlier today.

In the end we might’ve seen the last of one of the greatest champions to have come out of Brazil. Aldo’s reign lasted a very long time and only came to a close due to the meteoric rise of Conor McGregor in the after math of that 12 second KO.

Aldo is 35 years old with a professional record consisting of 31 wins and 8 losses. Prior to loss to Dvalishvili he was on a 3 win streak with victories over Marlon Vera, Rob Font and Pedro Munhoz.

According to this report, Jose Aldo has retired from MMA. He had 1 fight left in his deal but the UFC agreed to release him, so he’s free to box in the future if he wants.