Jose Aldo releases a statement after the UFC 218

Idk about Aldo man. I feel he's lost a bit of a step since the Mendes war and McGregor fight. He looked good against Edgar but that could just be a styles things. He looked good in the first round of the first Holloway fight then Holloway found his timing and range and then in the second fight he added leg kicks back to his arsenal which helped his look but his boxing technique looked horrendous. It was ridiculous how low his fight IQ looked being goaded so easily into winging hooks. I think he's taken a lot of damage in his past 5 fights so I'd understand if retirement looms but if he chooses to continue on I think 155 is the way to go. The weight cut could be a reason for his decreased durability lately while toning it back and moving up could revitalize him. Dude would still be way faster than just about all the 155ers.
 
You really can't do that though. Yes, he's an all-time Featherweight great, duh, maybe he's the GOAT right now, but I don't think it's a very strong claim to GOAT and will be surpassed soon, if not already, by Max, or even Conor if he comes back to FW, which is highly doubtful. Longtime champs have a few squash matches when there are no fights at the time, but you can't just deny when competition is weak for a period of time, especially when Featherweight was really only popular in WEC and other international organizations at the time.

Aldo's big claim to GOAT status is his 18-fight win streak over 10 years. Max Holloway currently has a 12 fight win streak in just one month short of 4 years. In his last 7 fights, including the Aldo fights, he toppled 5(6) of the top 5 and 1 of the top 6-10, (rematches are counted in the parentheses). During Aldo's UFC tenure he accumulated 5(7) top 5, and 0 top 6-10 wins.

Here's where I can get to the root of the problem; during fights against like Hominick, for example, 7 of the worldwide top 10 fighters weren't even in the UFC and Hominick was ranked below all of them and would be #15-16 depending on the ranker, but by technicality he was ranked #3 in the UFC. That's how much of a joke Featherweight was at the time. Or look at when Florian was ranked #1 with a single Featherweight win over worldwide ranked #13 Nunes, but because of the weak UFC competition he was ranked #3, so take that ranking for what it's worth, jack shit.

My point is that Aldo was king of a division that was newly developing in the West and wasn't facing internationally ranked fighters who had much deeper Featherweight divisions. So yes, by UFC standards he's probably the GOAT, but Max has been beating top guys in a much more competitive era, equaling most of Aldo's top wins minus Mendes and Edgar, and then beating Aldo himself. If Max beats Edgar I would absolutely rank him the GOAT Featherweight no question.
Yes, you really can pick apart any long time champs resume. There are countless threads doing the same to Fedor, GSP, Anderson, and even Jones.

Everyone credits wins differently due to biases and the time period you're in when you look at them. The rankings now won't mean shit in a few years, and the rankings suck for the most part anyway.

If you don't believe me, do a quick search of the forums for threads about the fighters I listed above being overrated. You'll find hundreds of threads dissecting their resumes just like you're trying to do to Aldo.

It's been done a million times, and can be done to any fighter with a resume that spans as long as Aldo's.
 
Even if you look back at his matches, his WEC competition was pretty damn weak, as were his first 2 years in the UFC. Faber and Mike Brown were really his only good WEC wins against legitimate competition, and Mike Brown was in the twilight of his career. Swanson didn't get good until much later. Then his first UFC unified belt defense was against Mark Hominick, a journeyman at best who got beat down in his next 3 fights and retired. Then Kenny Florian, after he dropped down from Lightweight, beat a fringe top 15 fighter in Diego Nunes and was magically granted a title shot despite being on the verge of retirement, had no accolades at Feathweight, and didn't even look that great against Nunes.

After the Florian fight is where he started to fight legitimate guys as Feathweight attracted a lot of the smaller Lightweights who were elite. His big wins as a champion were Mendes x2, Edgar and Lamas. As much as we all like the Korean Zombie, he hadn't done anything so great as to warrant a title shot, and was a fringe top 10-15 guy at best. Essentially, at best, Aldo over his WEC and UFC career had 5 strong wins.

Basically, if a10 year unbeaten streak, and a lot of vicious beatings put on some pretty weak competition in WEC and UFC before getting 6 very strong wins over 5 different fighters is enough to warrant GOAT status, then Aldo is your man. Before I get attacked, I'd like to point out that I would put him there at this point, but I think Holloway has a good claim to it even at this moment.
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That's a scum thing to post. And i love it!
 


“I only have to thank my family that I love for everything, and my team Nova Uniao, the best in the world, for making me great and champion, and [thank] my friends and fans that are always with me. Thank you all! I will be always optimistic because believing is the first step to making it happen."



true rags to riches story, conor was born rich
 
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