UFC 189 is one epic battle. A lot of things happened before, during, and after the mixed martial arts fight. Conor McGregor had a lot of things to say about the his opponents like Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes, and even Urijah Faber. Although McGregor has lashed out and said a lot of controversial statements, this war of words is not the ‘highlight of the show’. What is really going down is actually the battle between the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Jose Aldo.
Jose Aldo’s controversial rib injury created a lot of buzz in the MMA industry. Aldo was supposed to go up against Conor McGregor last July 11 at MGM Grand, but unfortunately, Aldo got injured in his previous fight which eventually got him pulled out from the much-awaited fight. However, this event did not go unnoticed. When Aldo backed out from the fight due to a fractured rib, the UFC had a different take on the issue. The UFC claimed that their own medical representatives believed that Aldo’s rib isn’t fractured at all. What looked like a fracture was actually a bruised rib and the rib area that broke was actually an old injury. The area that looked ‘broken’ was instead a calcified cartilage. The UFC’s president, Dana White, even released a statement suggesting that the real reason why Aldo backed out from the fight was because Aldo’s afraid that he would not be able to achieve the weight goal and be at 145 pounds in time for the weigh in.
In a recent episode of “You’re Welcome” MMA podcast, UFC title contender Chael Sonnen admitted that he almost got sued by Aldo’s legal team when he repeated the information he heard about Aldo’s injury. Apparently, Sonnen echoed the information he heard from a UFC conference who talked about Aldo’s injury and the claims that Aldo’s camp did not release the same x-rays that the UFC received.
Sonnen claimed that recently, while he was driving, he received a call from a lawyer in Brazil threatening to sue him for defamation. Later did he know that this lawyer’s client was Jose Aldo.
The lawyer who called him further stated Aldo’s camp will not sue Sonnen if he stopped talking about the injury issue. Sonnen answered the lawyer back saying that he was willing to go as far as issue an apology in case what he said was not true. “I don’t want to go around saying the guy put out two X-rays if that’s not true,” he said. However, Sonnen claimed that what confused him though was that the information that talked about came from a UFC press conference.
After that, the lawyer assured the UFC title contender that the UFC will not be talking about the issue as well because before they called Sonnen, Aldo’s camp called the UFC first and threatened them with a lawsuit if they continue to discuss the injury.
After the conversation, Sonnen concluded that Aldo might actually be saying the truth. Jose Aldo is threatening to sue me and claims that he threatened to sue the UFC. That’s a pretty big bluff. That’s a big enough bluff that I think he’s telling the truth,” he continued.
True enough, when Dana White was asked recently about Aldo, he boldy answered the media, “Don’t even ask me about his injury or any of that sh-t.”
Looks like Aldo made a wise move to end his conflict with the UFC.