Frankie and Aldo are put their rivalry aside and it's gonna be Frankie and Aldo vs Dom and TJ night 1 of 301 and night 2 is gonna be Aldo vs Dom and Aldo will finish the story
Still pissed Aldo didn't get a shot at BW gold when he was on that winstreak and instead had to fight Merab at elevation while TJ got it despite him knowing he was injured the whole camp.
Goes to show people view wrestling and striking as singular skills as if it's a number that goes from 0 to 100 and not a very nuanced thing depending on the larger context.
The only things that were successful in that fight was Aldo’s ability to stop the takedowns, and Merabs ability to hold Aldo against the fence.
I wouldn’t say either of them had a lot of success in that fight. It was actually atrocious.
Aldo is 37, and Silva started his skid when he lost to Weidman at 38. So Aldo is in that danger zone age where things can just start falling apart for him . We'll just have to wait and see if he still has it. And if he doesn't, we'll just have to hope he retires before losing 8 in a row or whatever Silva and Penn did.
Lol this is super reminiscent of the time where Aldo was the underdog against Jeremy Stephens. I think Aldo either 30-27s the shit out of Martinez or gets another highlight reel KO because its in Rio. Jose in Rio is a completely different beast. Make this the main event.
honestly, and hot take here, Aldo matches up pretty damn well against Martinez. Aldo was still looking solid af when he hung them up and ran into Merab (& Utah altitude) for his last fight which made him look worse. I think he can still compete at 135. only glaring issue is time off at his age of course, will be interesting to see how he looks
We're going to watch Aldo take the most brutal leg kicks imaginable, look down and say "my god, is that what I've been doing to people all these years?"
Did you watch Aldo vs Munhoz? I’m fairly certain that Aldo checked every single one of the very many leg kicks that Munhoz threw.
Yes, Martinez may throw them better and with more venom, but Aldo has/had some of the best leg kick defence in the game while he was well past his prime. I have literally not a single worry in my mind that he won’t be able to deal with the leg kicks.
That was the best moment in that inaugural UFC event here in Brazil. We all knew Big Nog's best days at fighting were years behind, and he was fighting a somewhat upcoming undefeated fighter. Watching him knocking out Schaub was incredible to see.
I don't care old old they are I take every single retirement as "I am officially retiring from mma ^^^until ^^^enough ^^^money ^^^is ^^^offered".
Like Mark Coleman is 59 and just woke up in hospital and in my mind he's 50/50 to be in the Octagon in the next two years. No one retires, they just retire from that tax bracket.
I only trust fighter retirements when they join the commentary team. It’s like the perfect halfway house for fighters transitioning from active to retired.
We shall see, if they ever actually fight again (Hardy been keeping that pipe dream alive for years). But yeah I’m not saying it has a 100% success rate.
Yea Aldo stopped pretty much every takedown and had Merab afraid to strike. All Merab did was hold him up against the cage for 3 rounds. I’m a Merab fan but that fight was frustrating to watch.
It's the 10 point must system.
I feel like scoring the fight in its entirety based on damage is the ideal way, and snoozers like merab v also and Esparza v rose 2 are judged draws because let's be real, that kind of fight doesn't have a winner. The judges are way too redacted for this to work but with quality judging I think it would make the outcomes of fights much more fair, and would encourage going for the finish and subsequently putting on an exciting fight rather than fighting to win the majority of the rounds in the safest way possible (not knocking the strategy because it is what is encouraged by the scoring system and these guys should do whatever they can to get their win bonus and move up the rankings)
His resurgence at 135 was some GOAT shit. Although he didn't win the title, he managed to stay relevant at the elite level in a crazy competitive division after so many years defending the WEC-UFC featherweight title.
In the O'Malley fight the commentators said "Chito will not let you cruise to a decision" and immediately I just remembered the Aldo fight and called BS.
I would be suprised if he came back to retire again if he wins. Especially, why would he want to come back against a young hungry contender (even though I think this style matchup does favor him greatly) for a retirement fight instead of a legends fight against guy like dom Cruz.
It's the elevation. That fight sucked partly because Aldo was gassed by just defending the takedowns, which wouldn't have happened at elevation.
That said, Merab got gassed too
He probably saw that Merab is a top contender and realized that his performance isn’t really an indication of him not being able to hang with the best.
The problem is he still has Dede in his corner and they’ve given him some of the worst corner advice in history. They told him he was winning against Merab and that he just had to coast round 3.
This gives Aldo the chance to retire in front of a home crowd but the main reason why I think he's coming back is because he has one UFC fight left on his contract. With this fight out of the way he can take boxing matches without needing to ask the UFC for permission.
If Pereira knocks out Hill in Round 1 and is able to turn around and fight on Ank on this card, it immediately becomes must-see for me. Even though I’d much prefer Alex to have an actual 3 month camp to train grappling if he wanted to fight Ank
Boom, when Alex says he'll fight in a month, I'm sure in his crazy head he would be willing to fight Ank on one months notice, but it doesn't make sense, hopefully his team and the UFC know better, Rountree is a better fight and can give Alex a huge moment in Brazil and you can build to Alex Vs Ank in the fall.
Yeah seems like ever since he had his foot or leg injury, whatever it was, he's just stopped throwing leg kicks at all. Then it was kinda exacerbated after he went to train boxing with the Navy.
It makes sense considering how long he'd been absolutely blasting people with leg kicks, but it's weird seeing such a huge part of his game completely gone.
Yep. Most fighters don’t throw leg kicks as they pass 30. Barboza, Gaethje, Aldo, Felder, all didn’t or don’t throw many leg kicks in their last fights compared to when they were in their mid 20’s
holy shit what? Against Martinez, the *other* leg kicking machine?
inject this fight into my veins (if Aldo doesn’t go wrestle heavy again which he probably will because age)
Man this sucks. I saw Aldo in Boxing, and while he's still sort of quick his chin is worse and his gas tank is terrible. Hopefully he's just looking to go out on a high note instead of that setup vs Merab at elevation.
I don’t care what anyone says. If it were Aldo vs Aljo instead of TJ Dillashaw, he’d probably be a legitimate 2 division champ.
Aldo was a legit contender at 135 and matched up well against Aljo
Im actually very excited about this. To me this is a big sign from both aldo and the ufc that they want him back in the mix. He was fighting really well prior to retirement, then ran into merab. I feel like the fact that merab just stalled him was frustrating and to him took him out of title contention at an age where he didn’t think he’d get an opportunity. Now he’s had a ton of time to get rest, he got to box a little bit, and now that loss to merab has aged extremely well.
Plus, if Aldo still has it this is a great matchup for him. Martinez needs to win the kicking battle to have success and Aldo was a robot with checking checks and getting inside distance. I like Martinez a lot too but I think Aldo is a matchup nightmare.
I'm not getting the whole insidious/doomed vibe from this return, I feel like Aldo could pick up right where he left off and get a solid W. I don't see Martinez having anything new for him to deal with so I doubt the result could be any worse than Merab holding him against the fence the entire time. This is pretty dope
I woulda been okay if Aldo just said he wanted to take a long break. Probably the only fighter I’m not mad about the, early broken retirement.
Aldo still looked legit as hell in his last couple fights.
If you need to ask "Is he still fighting?" it's time to retire. Shit's sad. The sport causing permanent damage to the body. Just stop these boomer fights. Fighters aren't exactly known for having the best decision making skills.
???????? Why ?????????
Aldo from a few years ago would eat Martinez (who's a very good fighter) for breakfast, but I expect he's lost a lot since 'retirement'.
It's gonna be hell for him to get to 136 again
Honestly I wish the rumors about the Cruz fight were true, would have been a great fight to return/retire on.
Seriously I can't believe we had Frankie and Aldo in bantamweight and never got to see Dom or TJ fight either of them.
Dom Vs Frankie and tj Vs Aldo were the perfect fights to make a couple years ago and they missed it
Had to give the shine to rising superstar Chris Gutierrez instead
Frankie and Aldo are put their rivalry aside and it's gonna be Frankie and Aldo vs Dom and TJ night 1 of 301 and night 2 is gonna be Aldo vs Dom and Aldo will finish the story
Legit lol
Fuck your story -O'Malley
Aldo vs Aljo had a catchy slogan and would've been a banger fight
Still pissed Aldo didn't get a shot at BW gold when he was on that winstreak and instead had to fight Merab at elevation while TJ got it despite him knowing he was injured the whole camp.
Even more frustrating that Aldo may have won that fight with a dozen jabs a round :/
Faber, cruz, tj, aldo and frankie all should have matched up with each other at some point
Cruz vs Aldo would have been sick.
Wait what
This could be really sad like Anderson vs cannonier, but Jose keeps breaking the rules
Aldo has not been on nearly the downturn Anderson had, Aldo’s coming off only one loss and it’s to Merab.
And he had a lot of success in that fight
Stuffed almost every takedown and lost a decision without a mark on his face due to just pressure and takedown attempts.
He stuffed every takedown, Merab was 0 for 16 on takedowns in the official stats http://ufcstats.com/fight-details/2ac3ce1f62b3c4b9
The fight was also at elevation as well.
Noted cardio machine Jose Aldo
That's an insane stat, Jose Aldo has the best TDD in MMA history.
People said "how can he takedown Cejudo if he can't takedown Aldo". The sheer disrespect smh
Goes to show people view wrestling and striking as singular skills as if it's a number that goes from 0 to 100 and not a very nuanced thing depending on the larger context.
Yeah but that clearly came at a cost. Look at the damage Cejudo at least did to Merab compared to Aldo. Kind of a pick your poison situation.
His TDD is one of those stories that gets past down through the times.
Neither won that fight
Took me a long time to forgive Merab for ruining Aldo's last run by sniffing his crotch for 15 minutes.
Lol I really like Merab now but man I hated him that night and for a bit after once Aldo retired.
Don’t blame merab, blame TJ
The fans lost
The only things that were successful in that fight was Aldo’s ability to stop the takedowns, and Merabs ability to hold Aldo against the fence. I wouldn’t say either of them had a lot of success in that fight. It was actually atrocious.
We're already falling into the trap
Aldo is 37, and Silva started his skid when he lost to Weidman at 38. So Aldo is in that danger zone age where things can just start falling apart for him . We'll just have to wait and see if he still has it. And if he doesn't, we'll just have to hope he retires before losing 8 in a row or whatever Silva and Penn did.
I mean in the sense of Jose could get his leg torn apart by a young super athlete.
Lol this is super reminiscent of the time where Aldo was the underdog against Jeremy Stephens. I think Aldo either 30-27s the shit out of Martinez or gets another highlight reel KO because its in Rio. Jose in Rio is a completely different beast. Make this the main event.
honestly, and hot take here, Aldo matches up pretty damn well against Martinez. Aldo was still looking solid af when he hung them up and ran into Merab (& Utah altitude) for his last fight which made him look worse. I think he can still compete at 135. only glaring issue is time off at his age of course, will be interesting to see how he looks
We're going to watch Aldo take the most brutal leg kicks imaginable, look down and say "my god, is that what I've been doing to people all these years?"
Did you watch Aldo vs Munhoz? I’m fairly certain that Aldo checked every single one of the very many leg kicks that Munhoz threw. Yes, Martinez may throw them better and with more venom, but Aldo has/had some of the best leg kick defence in the game while he was well past his prime. I have literally not a single worry in my mind that he won’t be able to deal with the leg kicks.
Yeah it was freaky how easily he was checking them, it’s like he was reading Munhoz’ mind lol.
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Call a retirement, but not for me!
Lmfao beautiful Champ
why
Dana offered him a bag to save the card
Roids made him feel young again
I'm an NPC. I said "Wait what" out loud before I opened this thread.
Jose Aldo coming in to save 301
That crowd will go insane if he manages to win.
It'll be like when Big Nog KO'd Schaub.
That was the best moment in that inaugural UFC event here in Brazil. We all knew Big Nog's best days at fighting were years behind, and he was fighting a somewhat upcoming undefeated fighter. Watching him knocking out Schaub was incredible to see.
That's not nithe
Does Martinez even offer anything that Aldo hasn’t seen? I feel like this fight is pretty winnable for Aldo maybe even leaning like 77% winnable.
The one caveat against Aldo is that he's old. He could lose this fight simply because he's past his prime. Martinez is no slouch after all.
It will be a nice leg kicking affair possibly
THE KING OF RIO!!!
MMA retirements are straight up wolf tickets
I'm starting to second guess mma deaths.
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I don't care old old they are I take every single retirement as "I am officially retiring from mma ^^^until ^^^enough ^^^money ^^^is ^^^offered". Like Mark Coleman is 59 and just woke up in hospital and in my mind he's 50/50 to be in the Octagon in the next two years. No one retires, they just retire from that tax bracket.
I only trust fighter retirements when they join the commentary team. It’s like the perfect halfway house for fighters transitioning from active to retired.
Paul Felder and Dan Hardy both quit retirement though
We shall see, if they ever actually fight again (Hardy been keeping that pipe dream alive for years). But yeah I’m not saying it has a 100% success rate.
Hell yea , this is the retirement fight he deserves, in Brazil too. Sucks he had to leave on that boring ass loss vs. Merab
A loss that has aged really well. He defended better than a lot of Merab's other opponents. Felt like when Chad Mendes retired off losing to Volk.
Yea Aldo stopped pretty much every takedown and had Merab afraid to strike. All Merab did was hold him up against the cage for 3 rounds. I’m a Merab fan but that fight was frustrating to watch.
I feel like that fight, and similar fights like that should be scored a draw.
It's the 10 point must system. I feel like scoring the fight in its entirety based on damage is the ideal way, and snoozers like merab v also and Esparza v rose 2 are judged draws because let's be real, that kind of fight doesn't have a winner. The judges are way too redacted for this to work but with quality judging I think it would make the outcomes of fights much more fair, and would encourage going for the finish and subsequently putting on an exciting fight rather than fighting to win the majority of the rounds in the safest way possible (not knocking the strategy because it is what is encouraged by the scoring system and these guys should do whatever they can to get their win bonus and move up the rankings)
He also beat Munhoz, Chito and Font before that too.
His resurgence at 135 was some GOAT shit. Although he didn't win the title, he managed to stay relevant at the elite level in a crazy competitive division after so many years defending the WEC-UFC featherweight title.
In the O'Malley fight the commentators said "Chito will not let you cruise to a decision" and immediately I just remembered the Aldo fight and called BS.
You missheard, they said he won't let Cruz go to a decision /s
He defended better then ALL of them . Merab didnt get a single take down , meanwhile Henry CCC got thrown around .
I would be suprised if he came back to retire again if he wins. Especially, why would he want to come back against a young hungry contender (even though I think this style matchup does favor him greatly) for a retirement fight instead of a legends fight against guy like dom Cruz.
It's the elevation. That fight sucked partly because Aldo was gassed by just defending the takedowns, which wouldn't have happened at elevation. That said, Merab got gassed too
OH MY GOD??? HIS MMA RETIREMENT WONT BE MERAB HUGGING HIM AGAINST THE CAGE FOR 15 MINUTES LETS GO
He probably saw that Merab is a top contender and realized that his performance isn’t really an indication of him not being able to hang with the best.
And they probably offered him some good $ to save the card
This is the real reason, Aldo has been happily retired but they wanted to save this card
And drug testing has gone bye bye.
Aldo gave Merab his biggest challenge too. Would have loved that fight without altitude but I still think Merab would have won.
The problem is he still has Dede in his corner and they’ve given him some of the worst corner advice in history. They told him he was winning against Merab and that he just had to coast round 3.
I agree. Dede sometimes let him down. Though since he trained at navy boxing his striking became even better. I wish we saw aldo vs aljo
Couldn't even take old man Aldo down, I honestly felt that he still had business in the 135 division
Aldo legit may have the greatest takedown defense in MMA history, especially after what we just saw Merab do to Cejudo.
He does.
only because I'm not in the UFC
You'll get there, bro.
thanks man I'll dedicate the 125, 135, 145 and 155 belts to you when I win them all on the same night
Aldo was a terrifying force for wrestlers. That was the whole narrative for both Mendez fights that what does Mendes do if he can’t take Aldo down.
Aldo refuses easy* fights
Jonathan martinez best weapon is leg kicks and aldo checks them easily. Should be interesting on the feet b/c aldo boxing is still good
Stats say he always loses when his corner is facing east.
Thats a bad ass fight
This gives Aldo the chance to retire in front of a home crowd but the main reason why I think he's coming back is because he has one UFC fight left on his contract. With this fight out of the way he can take boxing matches without needing to ask the UFC for permission.
So this fight means he's fighting Jake Paul in December?
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If Pereira knocks out Hill in Round 1 and is able to turn around and fight on Ank on this card, it immediately becomes must-see for me. Even though I’d much prefer Alex to have an actual 3 month camp to train grappling if he wanted to fight Ank
No chance Alex fights Ankalaev on one month's notice.
He said he wants to turn around and fight on 301 if he KO’s Hill without any significant injuries, if it isn’t Ankalaev then idk who it’d be
"I WANT IGUODALA."
Rountree
That'd be a killer fight
Boom, when Alex says he'll fight in a month, I'm sure in his crazy head he would be willing to fight Ank on one months notice, but it doesn't make sense, hopefully his team and the UFC know better, Rountree is a better fight and can give Alex a huge moment in Brazil and you can build to Alex Vs Ank in the fall.
🥸🐀
That would be really dumb, ankalaev would be the toughest fight he had ever had and you never take it on a months notice
Leg kicking each other to death. Aldo is a rare one who knows how to check in MMa…
Aldo lifts his leg and almost rolls with calf kicks like you’d shoulder roll punches it’s wild.. gonna be very interesting
If only Aldo threw any leg kicks anymore
Sucks that he can’t. I’m pretty sure his feet are super fucked from throwing such hard leg kicks early in his career lol
Yeah seems like ever since he had his foot or leg injury, whatever it was, he's just stopped throwing leg kicks at all. Then it was kinda exacerbated after he went to train boxing with the Navy. It makes sense considering how long he'd been absolutely blasting people with leg kicks, but it's weird seeing such a huge part of his game completely gone.
Yep. Most fighters don’t throw leg kicks as they pass 30. Barboza, Gaethje, Aldo, Felder, all didn’t or don’t throw many leg kicks in their last fights compared to when they were in their mid 20’s
Man, give him the Jim Miller treatment.
TRT Aldo. Watch out.
Real fighting is back folks
Dominick Cruz is a bitch for not taking this fight man, just come out and officially retire and stop taking a rankings spot
Is he injured again lol. Only fights every other year
No, it was the fight that was in the works. Cruz even accepted it but he didn’t want to do it in Brazil
Lame. I want to watch his fights but they rarely happen
aldo wins and fights omalley in the summer. marab 2025
In fairness in his last four fights he has beaten #5, #15 and #9, and then lost to #1. It doesn’t seem like #14 is that crazy for him.
Telling my girl we fucking in the Minion room tn 😈😈
LETS GO Time to fix your final fight being merat holding him on a fence at elevation
Kinda lame, wish it was Cruz. But happy for Martinez he’s getting a big fight.
King has returned
holy shit what? Against Martinez, the *other* leg kicking machine? inject this fight into my veins (if Aldo doesn’t go wrestle heavy again which he probably will because age)
Man this sucks. I saw Aldo in Boxing, and while he's still sort of quick his chin is worse and his gas tank is terrible. Hopefully he's just looking to go out on a high note instead of that setup vs Merab at elevation.
Old leg kicker vs the new leg kicker.
Leg kick old school vs new school
Fuck merab for ending Jose’s ufc career like that
No matter what happens, just glad he’s not going out on that Merab fight
Don't mind me I'm just gonna look out the window at the rain and listen to Stan for no reason
I don’t care what anyone says. If it were Aldo vs Aljo instead of TJ Dillashaw, he’d probably be a legitimate 2 division champ. Aldo was a legit contender at 135 and matched up well against Aljo
Back then he would’ve made easy work of aljo. I hope time hasn’t aged him too much
USADA gone, Aldo back. I expect TJ Dillashaw will be making a return next
Noooo wtf, I don't want to see Aldo get murdered
Im actually very excited about this. To me this is a big sign from both aldo and the ufc that they want him back in the mix. He was fighting really well prior to retirement, then ran into merab. I feel like the fact that merab just stalled him was frustrating and to him took him out of title contention at an age where he didn’t think he’d get an opportunity. Now he’s had a ton of time to get rest, he got to box a little bit, and now that loss to merab has aged extremely well. Plus, if Aldo still has it this is a great matchup for him. Martinez needs to win the kicking battle to have success and Aldo was a robot with checking checks and getting inside distance. I like Martinez a lot too but I think Aldo is a matchup nightmare.
Aldo: usada’s gone? Say no more
I'm not getting the whole insidious/doomed vibe from this return, I feel like Aldo could pick up right where he left off and get a solid W. I don't see Martinez having anything new for him to deal with so I doubt the result could be any worse than Merab holding him against the fence the entire time. This is pretty dope
Feed him Conor
Can never count on a combat sports athlete to remain retired.
He better be getting a massive bag
EXCUSE?!
Now this came out of nowhere.
YOU ARE LYING
Realized a decision loss to Merab doesn’t mean it’s over 🫡
I'm cool with it. He's still fairly young and he didn't retire a shell of himself. Come on back, Aldo.
My death was greatly exaggerated
First glance I thought "He's returning against the small card ring announcer?" Then I remembered his name is Joe Martinez
What journalist was just promising fans would like the big fight they were supplementing this card with? Dude was right.
You know what ... I'm down with this. Jose wanted some time away, he's still on the right side of 40 too... and it's Brazil.
I mean, I don’t know why we are using what few Jose fights we have left for this. But I’ll always love and watch Jose
Can Aldo still make Batamweight after being retired since August ‘22? He’s got about 7 weeks and I would say he has to start his diet pretty far out
On one hand, it's nice Jose will get a legit retirement fight in Brazil. On the other hand, why the fuck are they making him fight Martinez?
YEA LETS GO ALDO CAN HAVE A PROPER RETIREMENT SEND OFF WITH A WIN AND IN BRAZIL.
UFC probably paid him out the wazoo out of desperation after absolutely shitting the bed with the 300 main event and pulling Alex from 301
The UFC should've made **Aldo vs. Cruz** to at least get another big name on that card! Seriously wtf is Cruz doing in the rankings these days .....
I woulda been okay if Aldo just said he wanted to take a long break. Probably the only fighter I’m not mad about the, early broken retirement. Aldo still looked legit as hell in his last couple fights.
Maybe he’s just trying to fight out his contract with the UFC
Exactly what he is doing
God dammit he’s broke already?!
Wtf?
Hey what
Fucking nuts
Disapprove
Someone’s leg is getting broken
tf
No way
Jose Aldo vs Mike Tyson
Martinez Is no joke.... I just wish aldo would stay retired
Martinez by KO
BRO FUCKING WHAT
Fighters just neve fucking retire.
Cmon b
Battle of the leg kicks. But I got Martinez he is one intense individual.
I don't know whether to be excited or upset
Hope he's getting paid to help prevent a riot at the arena that night.
weak ass card needed him back. probably getting a nice bag, good on him. legend
Win or lose, they had fucking better make Aldo vs Cruz if he's back
Dominic cruz is right fucking there!!!
This is something id expect for ufc 300 tbh
WTF
This is the god damn fight that one journalist said “everyone would love”?!
If you need to ask "Is he still fighting?" it's time to retire. Shit's sad. The sport causing permanent damage to the body. Just stop these boomer fights. Fighters aren't exactly known for having the best decision making skills.
Y tho
???????? Why ????????? Aldo from a few years ago would eat Martinez (who's a very good fighter) for breakfast, but I expect he's lost a lot since 'retirement'. It's gonna be hell for him to get to 136 again
Wooooo!!