Yesterday’s Lion
The Anniversary of Aldo vs. McGregor
The greatest featherweight of all time drapes a rag over his face, not to dry his split nose but to shield himself from the exploding world around him. It feels almost cruel to observe him as he toils in confusion, this moment of great and private tragedy broadcasted to millions.
A year ago, Jose Aldo’s reign crumbled in the center of a Las Vegas cage. The previous year that had comprised of physical setbacks, psychological torment and the subsequent fatigue of spirit culminated in one sudden surge and crash. In Conor McGregor, the silent Brazilian had found his true foil, a brash extrovert with a slick tongue and ruthless intentions. In the Irishman’s left hand, Aldo found the harbinger of his kingdom’s collapse.
The decade Aldo spent as the menacing lion of the featherweight division seems to be of another time entirely. In the year since his fall, he has watched mostly from the shadows as McGregor’s ascended to the clouds, where names are etched in a history bigger than that of mixed-martial-arts. The tale of McGregor’s 2016 will be told long after his fighting days end, from his own shocking loss and subsequent redemption to his year-ending masterpiece in Madison Square Garden.
But what of Aldo, the ruler whose forward charge into a left hand facilitated McGregor’s rise to the top? His year has been been one of unfamiliar discontent.
Prior to Dec. 12, 2015, there was something mythic about Aldo’s place in the fight game. In the WEC he rampaged through the featherweight ranks, a young tornado of violence, the childhood scar on his cheek giving him a permanently sadistic grin. As he grew into his role as the UFC champion, Aldo bested a host of elite fighters with technical wizardry. And yet, it felt as though the world barely knew him. His lack of bilingual ability and his seeming indifference towards building an audience did little for his popularity, but contributed to the arcane aura of the man.
It’s a tragic bit of truth, but more of the world knows Jose Aldo as the man who fell in thirteen seconds than as the young berserker of his youth or daunting mastermind of his prime.
Only in prizefighting can legacy be so fragile. Prior to 1964, Sonny Liston was as feared as any man on the planet, a heavyweight champion every bit as hard and cold as the streets of St. Louis that made him. Yet to future generations, Liston lives mostly in a single black-and-white image, laying on his back in the center of the ring, the brash young renegade named Muhammad Ali towering over him. Roberto Duran was a bullish demon of a fighter, as willing to wade into warfare in the ring as he was intimidating outside of it. But none of Duran’s triumphs could erase the night in 1980, when he turned his back to the stinging Sugar Ray Leonard and said “No mas.”
Aldo’s monumental loss was less marred in controversy (Did Liston throw the fight? Why did Duran quit?) but every bit as damaging. He’s spent the better part of 2016 grappling with a strange sense of longing.
He lobbied for a deserved rematch, but even his years of dominance could not sway McGregor’s promotional pull. As the Irishman set his sights on grander ambitions, Aldo grew rancorous. His resentment towards the UFC weighed heavy on his image; this once stoic combatant was now forced to lash out with words rather than fists and feet. His frustration painted an ugly picture of a man scorned. The role of silent warrior made Aldo a cult hero — his newfound bitterness suited him less favorably.
Given the manner of Aldo’s fall, such spite is natural. Few can understand the mind of a fighting king as he picks up the glass pieces of his shattered throne.
In what would be Aldo’s only fight of 2016, he faced a familiar foe in Frankie Edgar, the scrappy perennial underdog whose momentum had been building since Aldo bested him in 2013. The UFC 200 rematch was contested for an interim featherweight title — a consolation prize to quell the frustrations of two worthy contenders as they awaited McGregor’s return to the division. The closeness of the odds despite Aldo’s previous win over Edgar was a product of the MMA world questioning the former champion’s confidence after his tragic fall.
Considering the magnitude of the event, gold canvas and all, Aldo’s domination of Frankie Edgar should have felt redemptive. Through five rounds he put on a technical masterclass, defensive in strategy but vicious with every punishing counter he cracked Edgar with. He showed no signs of weariness, of a damaged confidence or diminished chin following his December defeat.
Yet even with one of his greatest performances, Aldo could not escape the ghost of his last loss. It stood cageside in a tightly-fitted suit, staring daggers through the fencelinks, commanding every bit as much attention as the two men in the cage. McGregor’s presence as he watched the bout, and the media focus it garnered, was symbolic of Aldo’s predicament. What a shadow thirteen seconds can cast.
The interim belt predictably failed to fulfill its promise of drawing McGregor back to featherweight. Aldo’s frustration reached its boiling point. He asked for his release from the promotion, even threatening legal action. A few meetings with the bosses later, and he changed his tune.
In a cruel bit of irony, Aldo ends this turbulent year since UFC 194 in, on paper, the same position he’d been in before it. He tops the featherweight rankings as “undisputed champion” with McGregor now stripped. He even has a brash young challenger with a secondary belt firing shots at him, this one Hawaiian rather than Irish and with a bit less venom on his verbal blows.
And yet Aldo is not the fearsome champion he was. No ranking or manufactured label can erase the sting of that night last December, in Aldo’s mind or in the public consensus.
The truth, however damaging it may be to the legend of Jose Aldo, is that his singular focus on settling the score with McGregor hinges completely on the Irishman’s desires. In Max Holloway, Aldo has a fiery and formidable contender, and perhaps a victory over the Hawaiian will legitimize Aldo’s asterisk-worn title and peak McGregor’s interest again.
Once the king atop the mountain, Aldo faces an uphill climb if he is to regain his once unshakable aura.
Maybe his hungry hunt for a rematch with McGregor will lead him to the redemption he so desperately seeks. Perhaps, however, the greatest featherweight will be forever left chasing the wind.
