Jose Aldo accused Dana White of turning UFC into a ‘circus’ by booking historic Conor McGregor fight

Jose Aldo was furious when the UFC booked Conor McGregor vs Eddie Alvarez After Aldo turned down a Conor McGregor rematch offer because of the late notice at UFC 196, he went on to fight Frankie Edgar for the interim featherweight title in July 2016. The fight, which marked Aldo’s first since the 13-second KO against McGregor, went the distance and saw all three scorecards go the Brazilian’s way, seemingly setting up a unification fight with the Irish champion. While ‘Junior’ claimed to have been promised as much by Dana White, the UFC instead went a different way and gave McGregor the chance to become the promotion’s first-ever simultaneous double champion. He made the most of that opportunity at UFC 205, where McGregor knocked out Eddie Alvarez to capture the lightweight belt. Aldo, meanwhile, was left enraged at the situation. So much so that he even requested his release from the UFC. “I heard about everything that happened through my coach (Andre Pederneiras),” Aldo told Brazilian website Combate over nine years ago. “We waited until Dana publicly said that he wanted this fight with McGregor to happen. And then we expected it to happen: I’d get my rematch to unify the featherweight belts, or I’d have my belt back and fight (Max) Holloway or (Anthony) Pettis, since Dana said all the time that Conor couldn’t keep both belts. “But, to my surprise, I heard last night about the fight between McGregor and Eddie Alvarez, which was also denied by Dana last week,” Aldo continued. “And to make it worse, he would keep the featherweight belt, and possibly have two belts at the same time. “I understand that he sells a lot, but it gets to a limit when it’s no longer a sport, it becomes a circus.”