According to former UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen, the current UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo was ducking Conor McGregor when he pulled out of their fight at UFC 189, saying that if Aldo wanted to fight through the injury, he “could have if he really wanted to.”
Sonnen appeared on TSN’s Off The Record with Michael Landsberg , and called the Aldo injury “fugazi.” Sonnen believes that Aldo doesn’t want to be in the 145-pound weight class anymore, which could be true given the fact that Aldo usually has a really hard weight cut. Talk of Aldo moving up to 155 has been going on for several years now, and Sonnen believes that Aldo finally wants to move up to lightweight, which is why he didn’t take the fight with Conor McGregor after he was injured.
“I want to be responsible with my words because a guy’s health comes first but that story is extremely fugazi. Two different x-rays came out. Five different stories came out. His coach says he doesn’t want to coach him anymore.”
“Jose says he doesn’t want to be in the weight class anymore and his own teammate, after he injures him, goes on a media tour telling everybody how he did it. That was a weird, weird deal.”
Many believe that if McGregor and Aldo end up fighting, that — due to McGregor knocking out Chad Mendes — the fight between the two will be even bigger than the fight between the two that was supposed to take place on July 11.
UFC President Dana White has said that the fight between Aldo and McGregor will take place in Las Vegas, and most believe that they’ll fight in early December. However, there has been some talk of trying to take the McGregor vs. Aldo bout to AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas, because the UFC is confident that a fight between the two can draw nearly 100,000 people.
While the UFC brass believes that the Aldo vs. McGregor fight is even bigger now than it was previously, Chael Sonnen doesn’t believe so, but he does think that Dana White will once again put all of his resources into promoting the fight, hoping that it’ll turn out to be the biggest fight of all time.
“Well, our president Dana White is a gambler. I think he will gamble and throw down a bunch of money and try to put it together again. No, I don’t imagine… I don’t know why [Aldo and McGregor] would [fight]. It’s not going to be bigger than it just was [at UFC 189] and Jose just didn’t show up.”
[Image via MMA News ]
