Jose Aldo has ruthlessly slammed UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov for ‘talking too much’ while in retirement and accused him of turning down a fight with him.
The 35-year-old UFC star has picked up back-to-back wins over Marlon Vera and Pedro Munhoz after his defeat to Petr Yan at UFC 251 in July 2020.
Aldo, who was the first UFC bantamweight champ, was stopped by Yan in the fifth round of their clash in Abu Dhabi.
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Khabib criticised the former three-time UFC featherweight champ by suggesting that he was more of a businessman than a fighter.
Speaking at a press conference in Russia earlier this year, the UFC legend said: “He got beat up when he fought […] Petr [Yan], right?
“A guy wins one fight and everyone starts talking. When Conor [McGregor] fought [Donald] ‘Cowboy’ [Cerrone], he looked like a lion. When he fights stronger opponents, he looks like a scared chicken. Fighting top fighters shows your worth.
“Let him fight Petr the same way. Then we can say he’s peaking again. You saw what he did. He closed up and waited for the ref to stop the fight. That shows that you’re not at your peak.
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“If you’re getting hit and you’re conscious and you’re not defending yourself, I call those fighters businessmen. They come out to make money.”
Aldo dismissed the 33-year-old Russian superstar’s claim that a fighter couldn’t “peak again” by pointing to Glover Teixeira’s sensational win over Jan Blachowicz.
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The 42-year-old Brazilian-American fighter submitted Blachowicz with a rear-naked choke in the second round of their UFC 267 clash and captured the light heavyweight title.
“He’s saying you can’t peak again, but we just saw an example with Glover, who got there, lost, and got there again at age 42 and won [the UFC title], completely dominated the champion, took him down and submitted him,” Aldo told MMA Fighting.
“[Israel] Adesanya himself fought [Jan Blachowicz] for five rounds, a pretty boring fight, two high-level athletes, and Glover, who’s older than me [won].
“Sometimes Khabib talks too much. He’s not doing much these days, he’s retired, so he’s looking for [attention] that way.”
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Aldo’s first UFC featherweight title reign came to an end at the hands of Conor McGregor, who famously knocked him out in 13 seconds in their UFC 194 clash.
The future UFC Hall of Famer regained the championship title in 2016, but Aldo revealed that he had been offered an interim lightweight title fight.
Aldo kept the identity of the opponent hush-hush, but he has now revealed that it was Khabib.
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“I was travelling when [my coach] ‘Dede’ [Pederneiras] called me,” he said.
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“The [UFC] had offered me this fight and we took it. I said, ‘What? I want that, I’m in.’ I respect everybody, but that opportunity […] I was the featherweight champion, and [Nurmagomedov] didn’t think it was a good [idea].
“I don’t know if he was expecting to fight somebody else, I don’t know what he was thinking at the time. I think it could have been a great fight. I wanted to test myself.
“Everybody always asks me. […] It’s funny, everybody thinks I train wrestling a lot. No, man, I usually do the same training with my team, so, to me, it would have been a really tough test.
“I’ve always fought against American wrestling and it was hard to take me down, so it would be a tough test against him, if he would be able to impose his takedown game against me knowing that I have pretty good takedown defence as well.”
Khabib called it time on his illustrious fighting career after his stunning second-round win over Justin Gaethje at UFC 254 in October 2020.
The Eagle, who retired with an undefeated 29-0 professional MMA record, later vacated the UFC lightweight championship.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Jose Aldo, Khabib Nurmagomedov, UFC, MMA