Coach Andre Pederneiras Refutes Jose Aldo Retirement Rumors

Rumors of the demise of Ultimate Fighting Championship great Jose Aldo are greatly exaggerated.

At UFC 278, former champ Aldo collided with surging contender Merab Dvalishvili, and he fell short by decision. In his victorious tour around media outlets, Dvalishvili declared on “The MMA Hour” that Aldo told him, right after their fight, that he would retire. Aldo himself has yet to respond to clarify or otherwise discuss Dvalishvili’s statement. On Friday, Sherdog spoke to Aldo’s head coach Andre Pederneiras, who guaranteed the former featherweight champion is not done yet.

“No way,” Pederneiras exclaimed. “It’s not uncommon that high-level fighters say they are done after a loss, once I had many high-level fighters last 30 years, I can’t tell you how many times I´ve heard that after a loss. The fact is that, unlike many other top champions that finished their career only losing, being out of the rankings, we can see that Aldo continues performing at the highest level of the sport.”

Pederneiras had more to say about Aldo’s bout, especially when it came to the officiating. The head coach did not believe referee Jason Herzog gave Aldo a fair chance in the fight, as he believed the fighters should have been separated for stalling. Dvalishvili failed to land a single takedown in the entire fight, which led to several stalemates against the fence.

“That defeat, in my opinion, was pretty much questionable,” ‘Dede’ stated. “I’m not saying I was robbed, but a second round like that, where the referee accepted one fighter staying absolutely stalling the opponent in the cage. If all the refs allow that kind of behavior, imagine what would happen to our sport? Nobody wants to see that s---. I have all respect for Jason Herzog, but he had the same attitude, both in Aldo and [Ketlen Vieira]’s fight.

Herzog was not the lone official who drew the ire of the Nova Uniao head. Judge Michael Bell scored the bout 30-27 for Dvalishvili, and Pederneiras vehemently disagreed.

“The sick guy who gave the first round to Merab has no idea about MMA,” an exasperated Pederneiras said. “He is probably a wrestler. If they believe that holding a fight in the cage is a sport, they should stop hiring strikers and just hire wrestlers.”

The coach did make sure to note that even though he was not happy with the official handling of the match, he had no issue with Dvalishvili or his approach.

“I have nothing bad to say about Merab, he did a strategy using the weapons he had and the rules. The fact is that the bantamweight division is one of the toughest in the UFC nowadays. If you get all ten top-ranked guys facing each other, everybody could have losses and wins depending on the style matchups and the day of the fights. The fact is that there are a lot of top guys, and Aldo is still inside that group.”

After the rumor of Aldo’s retirement spread, many Brazilian fans started to ask the so-called “People’s Champion” to take his retirement fight in Rio de Janeiro in January at UFC 283. Fans and media alike started to posit the names that Aldo could face should he only have one more fight. While ex-champ T.J. Dillashaw’s name came up, ultimately the consensus believed fellow veteran Dominick Cruz would be the best opponent in the last fight of Aldo’s contract. When asked about the possibility of Aldo fighting in Rio, Pederneiras was not ready to take a stand.

“We already asked [about] T.J. [and] Dominick in [the] U.S.A., but unfortunately, they were not available for [the] UFC’s agenda. After all, Aldo has just returned from his last fight, which didn’t go the way he planned. For now, I cannot tell you, for sure, if he will fight [at] UFC Rio,” Pederneiras concluded.