Jose Aldo’s drop down to bantamweight is now official as he’s been booked to fight Marlon Moraes at UFC 245 in Las Vegas on December 14th.
There had been concerns that the cut down to 135lbs would be too difficult for Aldo given that he’s had issues making featherweight in the past, but the former champion has been on a new diet ahead of this announcement and is already down to 150lbs before his training camp even starts for the fight.
Aldo had originally been pushing for a title fight with Henry Cejudo, but instead he’s been handed recent title contender Moraes, who lost to ‘The Messenger’ by TKO back in June.
That ended a four-fight winning streak for Moraes that had included wins over top divisional contenders like John Dodson, Aljamain Sterling, Jimmy Rivera and Raphael Assuncao.
As for Aldo, he is coming off a decision loss against Alexander Volkanovski at featherweight in May.
Before that, the 33-year-old had did his best to put back-to-back losses against current champion Max Holloway behind him by racking up TKO victories against both Jeremy Stephens and Renato Moicano.
Aldo vs. Moraes joins a heavily stacked UFC 245 card that will be headlined by no less than three title fights as welterweight champion Kamaru Usman fights Colby Covington, featherweight champion Max Holloway goes up against Alexander Volkanovski and bantamweight queen Amanda Nunes is challenged by Germaine de Randamie.
