Coming off a loss to Alexander Volkanovski, former featherweight champion Jose Aldo has revealed that he’s now targeting a move down to bantamweight with the aim of fighting double-champion Henry Cejudo for the 135lb title.
“At the moment, we’ve been thinking about what is the best chance to fight for a belt again,” Aldo told Combate. “I sat down with everybody, I studied, and I think there’s a real possibility of me making 135. I’ll try to move to this new weight class, and I’m asking for a title shot right off the bat. It’ what matters to me now. Cejudo said he was open to fight anyone, so I’m open to this, I want a chance to fight and beat him. Then I’ll think about moving up again, to 145 or maybe 155. Since he’s open, I’ll accept the challenge. And I hope that, in the near future, we can make this fight happen.”
That may raise some eyebrows given that Aldo has had issues making 145lbs before, nevermind dropping a further 10lbs to compete at bantamweight, but the Brazilian star claims his nutritionist believes it will be possible and he is excited by the idea of freshening things up by going to a new weight class.
“I, particularly, think that 145 is too stale for me. A third fight against Max is hard to happen. The division is renewing itself, so of course they won’t put anybody to fight me, because I can hinder those plans. It’s much easier for me to go down. I never worked with a nutritionist before, to lose weight in the long term. I always did it one week before the fight, but it was quick. Now, we’ve talked and saw a real possibility of hitting the mark. So there’s nothing more fair than to fight the 135 champion.”
Aldo is not the only 145lb star looking to make the switch as Frankie Edgar also recently signalled that he will be moving down to 135lbs for his next fight.
However, while Cejudo has welcomed the news that two high profile fighters now have their sights set on his title, ‘The Messenger’ says he’s still recovering from injuries and won’t be back in the Octagon until next year.
