Doubts are again rising about the chances of Jose Aldo being fit enough to fight Conor McGregor at UFC 189 on July 11th after it emerged that doctors have come to conflicting conclusions about the extent of his rib injury.
The initial diagnosis from doctors in Brazil appears to have been that the featherweight champion had in fact fractured ribs, but a subsequent assessment from U.S doctors ruled that he was in fact just suffering from deep brusing.
As things stand Aldo’s coach Andre Pederneiras says the fight is still in on and that his fighter is receiving treatment, but is still in signficant amounts of pain.
“There’s medical report here and an evaluation there. I’m not a doctor to say which one is correct,” Pederneiras told the assembled media in Brazil last night. “I know he’s injured and this rib injury is painful. He’s using anti-inflammatory and we will wait to see if he gets better. The fight is on, and we’ll check him again next week.”
“We will only have this answer next week,” he continued. “He’s under treatment. He did an injection and is under a PRP (platelet-rich plasma) treatment, and is waiting to get better. They take his blood, use only the good plasma, and inject it on the injury. The fight is 15 days away. Doctors say he will get better day after day. We can’t say how he will feel 15 days from now.”
Even assuming a best case scenario in which Aldo hasn’t broken his ribs, Pederneiras says that the chances of Aldo fighting will hinge on his ability to make weight for the contest.
“If he can’t do any exercise to cut weight, he won’t fight at all,” he said.
That’s very important as Aldo is well known to suffer through very difficult weight cuts in order to get down to the 145lb featherweight limit in the past.
So, at this stage it looks like this match-up is in real danger of falling through. However, if that was the case then the UFC do have a contingency plan, with Chad Mendes already having been brought in as a back-up which would see him fight McGregor for the interim title if Aldo pulls out.
