Another big update on Jose Aldo’s injury from yesterday’s edition of The MMA Hour: According to his training partner Jonas Bilharinho, Aldo will have his first post-injury training today and finally decide if he can fight Conor McGregor at UFC 189 or not.
The UFC featherweight champion has injured his ribs during a sparring session last week. Since then, several doctors have made contradicting statements on his condition. While physicians in Brazil diagnosed a fracture, their American colleagues assured, the champion only suffered from a bruise. The Nevada Athletic Commission recently sounded very optimistic, that the fight will go on as planned, but Aldo himself doesn’t seem to be so sure about that. According to Bilharinho, a two-division Jungle Fight champion who was brought in to mimic McGregor’s fighting style, Aldo wasn’t even able to walk normally after the injury last week.
“He was walking slowly to not feel the pain on the ribs. It’s disturbing. You can’t punch, you can’t move, you can’t breathe, but the pain was still fresh. I don’t know right now. It’s probably better. If the pain got worse, he will probably don’t fight. But I think the fight is going to happen. I don’t think it will get any worse,” said Bilarinho, who saw Aldo for the last time on Thursday. “It’s a little bit painful, but there are some kinds of pain that we can hold during fights and there are some kinds of pain that we can’t hold. I hope that it’s one of the ones that we can hold. We will test him on Tuesday. Tuesday is the big day.”
The fight versus McGregor is arguably the biggest of Jose Aldo’s career, a million-dollar opportunity that has been promoted for months in unprecedented fashion. Should he not be able to fight, Chad Mendes is waiting to jump in and fight McGregor for the interim belt. But that’s not what many fans want. And it is not what Jose Aldo wants.
“I think he will probably fight. And I hope so. I will be with him on Tuesday to see what he’s capable of doing during training or not, but my opinion right now is that he’s going to fight. I’m going to be optimistic about it because Aldo wants this fight so bad. I think this fight will probably happen,” Bilarinho said. “He’s very strong mentally. Once he decides to fight, the pain won’t be a problem. I know he can beat Conor. He totally can beat Conor.”
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