Former UFC champion Jose Aldo has expressed his desire to fight on the undercard of the highly anticipated Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul match this summer.
Aldo, who is coming out of MMA retirement to face Jonathan Martinez at UFC 301 this weekend, has since ventured into boxing, with three fights under his belt including professional bouts against Esteban Espindola and Jeremy Stephens.
Previously linked with a bout against boxing legend Floyd Mayweather, Aldo now has his sights set on one of the year’s biggest cards – the Tyson and Paul showdown in Texas on July 20. “I want to do this fight, see where I’m at, see how I do, see how I perform and then I can make a decision,” Aldo shared with MMA Junkie.
He added: “I’m looking at maybe a big boxing fight maybe somewhere down the line later this year. But we’ll revisit that with the UFC once this fight is done with Jonathan Martinez.
“That fight with Floyd Mayweather was basically all set and done. Ali (Abdelaziz) was the one that was negotiating that and I don’t really know what happened and it ended up not panning out for us to fight in Saudi Arabia.
“But there’s a big event on Netflix later this year (Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson), and hopefully, I can get on that. But we’ll have to see. There’s a lot of options floating.”
“I think I needed a break for my mind and my body,” he added. “Just due to the amount of demand I put on myself and the tole that it had taken on me training for the past 20 years.
“I found a discipline I could focus on which was boxing, and I did that for a while and I was able to kind of recover from all the pressure and everything else.
“Wanting to be the champion and every fight in there, the tole and the demand I put on myself (was significant). Now I feel like I’ve done that, and I’m able to come back.”
In 2015, Aldo lost his UFC featherweight title when Conor McGregor knocked him out in just 14 seconds. He later regained the belt but lost it again to Max Holloway in 2017.
Two years later, he was knocked out by Petr Yan while challenging for the bantamweight belt.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!