In 2017, Jose Aldo lost his featherweight title to Max Holloway and then lost the rematch. He bounced back with two Performance of the Night earning wins, over Jeremy Stephens and Renato Moicano. However, last year he lost to Alexander Volkanovski who went on to beat Holloway and take the title. In his last fight, Aldo moved up to bantamweight and lost a split decision to Marlon Moraes.
And now, on the main card of UFC 251 on Saturday night, Aldo fights Petr Yan for the bantamweight belt vacated by Henry Cejudo. It's only the third time in UFC history a title shot was extended after consecutive non-title losses, but at a pre-fight media scrum, Aldo was unconcerned.
“I’m not worried about that,” said Aldo through a translator, as transcribed by Danny Segura and John Morgan for MMA Junkie. “I won that fight. Even the judges afterwards said they agree with me. I beat Marlon, who’s the No. 1 contender, so it doesn’t bother me at all. I deserve to be here.”
“It was always a dream of mine to be a champ in two different divisions. At first, I thought I was going to have to go up to lightweight, but now I’m down to bantamweight. I really do think one day when I stop fighting I’m going to be able to look back and see everything that I did.”