För några veckor sedan var det tal om att José Aldo (26-2) skulle flytta upp till lättvikt. Tanken var att Aldo skulle möta antingen Khabib Nurmagomedov (24-0) eller Tony Ferguson (22-3) för en match om interimbältet, rapporterade MMAJunkie.
Matchen skulle utspelat sig under UFC 209 den fjärde mars i Las Vegas men de planerna har lagts på is. Dock är Aldos flytt upp till lättvikt inte död menade Aldos tränare, Andre Pederneiras, som nu sitter vid förhandlingsbordet.
We’re doing some negotiations with the UFC – Andre Pederneiras. It depends on some agreements. There’s this interest in moving up, and it could’ve happened now, with the challenge that Aldo issued to Khabib, who’s No. 1 in the (UFC) rankings. Turned out he didn’t take it. Then we issued it to Tony Ferguson, who’d talked a bunch of crap on the Internet two weeks before, saying even that he would fight Aldo. But then when we offered it, he ran and didn’t take it.
Vidare berättade Pederneiras att Ferguson varit väldigt frispråkig när det handlat om en potentiell match mot Aldo men att Ferguson hellre ”flyr” än att ta matchen.
Sometimes the guy talks a bunch, and when they offer what he’s talking about, he says he doesn’t want it. So, the guy just wants attention. And that’s what happened now. We tried Khabib, who turned it down because his dad felt it wasn’t worth it at the moment. We’re not saying he’s scared, because an athlete who’s used to fighting in the UFC is not afraid of anyone. There are moments in a fighter’s career that he needs to be able to pick and use in his favor.
They felt, on Khabib’s side, it wasn’t the right moment to take a fight like this. On Tony Ferguson’s side, I can’t say the same. Because if two weeks before you say you want to get the guy, that you can move down a weight division to fight the champion, and they offer the fight in your division and you say no? Then you don’t really have what to say.
Aldo har ännu ingen match inbokad men har planer på en potentiell flytt upp till lättvikt. Aldos senast match var om interimbältet i fjädervikt mot Frankie Edgar under UFC 200. En match han vann via enhälligt domslut. Interimbältet blev senare det officiella fjäderviktsbältet då Conor McGregor inte försvarat det.
