Aldo rules out ‘auction’ and dreams of ‘skipping the queue’ for a chance at a new UFC belt

The return of José Aldo to the octagon of UFC It could not have been better. In front of a packed Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, the King of Rio defeated Jonathan Martinez via unanimous decision with a dominant performance on the UFC 301 main card.

The fight was Aldo’s last in his current contract with the UFC and the Brazilian ruled out making an “auction” of his future and said he even dreamed of jumping the queue and fighting for the belt again.

“It doesn’t cross my mind to hold an auction. Everything in my life I’ve done thinking about becoming a champion. I always have to sit down with the UFC, especially because the contract states this: Ultimate can cover any offer that appears. So first we have We want to sit down with Dana and see the best path we can take”, said the Brazilian in a press conference after the event.

Afterwards, Aldo spoke about the possibility of remaining in the UFC and, who knows, jumping the queue to have a chance to become bantamweight champion again.

“Dedé always says this: with the name you have, you can jump the queue. Especially because when we left, I was very well ranked. Yes, I hope this (having ‘saved’ UFC Rio) can help. If If we can get a hole in it, it would be great!”, he concluded.

UFC 301 results:

Main card

Alexandre Pantoja beat Steve Erceg by unanimous decision of the judges – flyweight belt

José Aldo beat Jonathan Martinez by unanimous decision of the judges – bantamweight

Anthony Smith beat Vitor Petrino via submission at 2:00 of the 1st round – light heavyweight

Michel Pereira defeated Ihor Potieria by submission (guillotine) at 0:54 of the 1st round – average weight

Caio Borralho beat Paul Craig by knockout at 2:10 of the 2nd round – middleweight

Preliminary Card

Joanderson Brito defeated Jack Shore by technical knockout – featherweight

Iasmin Lucindo beat Karolina Kowalkiewicz via unanimous decision – strawweight

Myktybek Orolbai defeated Elves Brener via unanimous decision – lightweight

Drakkar Klose beat Joaquim Silva by unanimous decision – lightweight

Mauricio Ruffy beat Jamie Mullarkey by TKO at 4:42 of the 1st round – lightweight

Dione Barbosa beat Ernesta Kareckaite by unanimous decision – flyweight

Ismael Bonfim beat Vinc Pichel by unanimous decision – lightweight

Alessandro Costa defeated Kevin Borjas by technical knockout at 1:35 of the 2nd round – flyweight