“I was hurt. Dana knew I was hurt. He is not a doctor. He is the UFC president, he promotes fights. He can say whatever he wants.”
This is what Jose Aldo boldly stated during a recent interview about his injury. He stood by his doctor’s diagnosis on his case saying that he was indeed hurt and he has all the evidence proving it. “I was hurt, I have nothing to say. You can look at my x-rays if you want to. I showed them everything, x-rays, cat scans, videos, you name it,” Aldo said. “Sometimes things get lost in translation. Dana knew I was hurt. He’s not a doctor, he’s the UFC president, he promotes fights. Who can tell if I’m hurt or not should be someone who knows what they’re talking about. Many doctors saw what happened. He can say whatever he wants.”
A lot of people believed that Aldo’s injuries were not serious and he shouldn’t have backed out from his epic fight with McGregor. Even mixed martial arts UFC President Dana White said that his injuries weren’t as serious as fractures.
Aldo had his ribs checked a couple of times by different doctors. His doctors in Brazil and one independent doctor in the US claimed that his ribs are indeed broken. However, Dana White and the UFC have stood their ground claiming that the doctors that were asked by the UFC to check on Aldo diagnosed him with only a bruised rib and cartilage damage.
Dana White said that Aldo withdrew from the fight not because of the injury alone, but because Aldo will not be able to reach the target weight. This, actually, is a valid concern when a fighter has a rib injury.
Dana White stated in an interview, “He had to cut something like 24 pounds and if he couldn’t physically do it the way that he does it, he was afraid that he couldn’t make weight. That was really the issue. But he did not have a broken rib. It was a bruise. Every x-ray he sent out was of an old injury. What you saw right there on his body was an old injury, not a new injury.”
These statements really disappointed Aldo’s camp. Ana Claudia Guedes, Aldo’s manager, even made sure that the people knew how they felt about this. After learning about White’s statements, she tweeted that White was trying to throw Aldo under the bus.
Aldo and McGregor’s fight was the main event in the UFC 189 held last July 11 in MGM Grand, Las Vegas. Rumors had it that UFC even spent more than a million dollars just to hype up the people for the mega-fight. UFC even went as far as doing flashy promotional videos and a media tour that was featured in several countries. Sadly, Aldo reportedly suffered an injury last June, just weeks before his epic fight with Conor McGregor. Doctors said that Aldo suffered a rib injury. Although there were speculations that it was just a bruised rib and the injuries showing on the x-rays were old injuries, it was later on announced that Aldo will not be able to go forward with the much-awaited bout between him and McGregor. Dana White, UFC’s president, claimed that the said event was looking into a million pay-per-view buys, which has only happened the ninth time in the entire company history.
Seeing all the anticipation and huge amounts of money spent on promoting the mixed martial arts mega-fight, it is not surprising that people will start giving a piece of their mind about the issue.
