Interim featherweight champion Jose Aldo reacted angrily on Tuesday to the news that Conor McGregor will fight Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title at UFC 195, while still retaining his 145lb title, and a couple of days later it appears he was serious about his desire to leave the promotion.
That’s the word according to his manager, Andre Pederneiras, who says that the former long-time champion is willing to go to court to break fee from his current UFC deal if that’s what it takes.
“I think Dana and the new owners have to understand that there’s a completely unsatisfied employee who doesn’t want to continue,” Pederneiras told Combate, as translated by MMAfighting.com. “If that was in Brazil and a guy said ‘boss, I want to leave,’ I’d say ‘OK, I can’t hold you.’ The contract we have in the UFC, ‘boss, I want to leave,’ the answer is ‘no, you’ll be stuck with me, you might not do anything, but you can’t leave here.’ Is that something nice?
“I think it creates dissatisfaction, and he will want to go to court. He would have to go to court to cut this contract. And the damage a dissatisfied person, someone like Aldo, talking (expletive) to everyone about a lot of things, I think the company wouldn’t want a guy like this every day in the media talking trash.”
White hasn’t yet responded to these latest comments, but on Tuesday night when Aldo first spoke out he made it clear that the UFC wouldn’t be interested in releasing him.
“We won’t cancel his contract.” White said in an interview with Revista Combate. “We know he got very emotional. We respect Jose Aldo very much. We care for the people around him. Khabib Nurmagomedov wanted a fight on the card and we got it for him. I’m sure we can find something nice for Aldo, as well.”
By the sounds of things, Aldo, who still has six fights left on his contract, is unlikely to be appeased by anything the UFC has to offer at this stage.
“We don’t want a war, we don’t want a fight, we don’t want to talk bad about anyone. We only want the right to say ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s not about money, I don’t want to be here anymore’,” Pederneiras said.
