When announcing on Sportscenter last night that Conor McGregor would face Nate Diaz at UFC 196 on March 5th, Dana White made a pointed effort to highlight those who had turned down the bout.
Neither Jose Aldo or Frankie Edgar were willing to take on the Dubliner on just 11 days notice.
We called Jose Aldo, Jose Aldo turned the fight down. We called Frankie Edgar, Frankie Edgar turned the fight down. Those were two guys that everyone was talking about - those two out of the way.
To mitigate for both Aldo and Edgar, the latter is currently injured while the former only returned for injury suspension on February 10th. That suspension also meant no contact training until a month ago.
It's not just the UFC president who is having pops at Aldo and Edgar.
Writing for The42.ie, McGregor's coach John Kavanagh questioned the pair's mutual assertion that they were willing to fight the featherweight title holder 'any time and any place'.
I did find it somewhat interesting, however, that Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar both turned it down. I seem to recall them insisting quite recently that they were willing to fight Conor “any time and any place”. Obviously, they forgot to mention that 5 March in Las Vegas was an exception.
There is the question of what would have happened had Jose Aldo accepted the fight. What weight class would they have fought at? McGregor had been training for a lightweight bout, so it would seem unlikely that he could have made weight for the 145-pound mark.
Did the UFC expect Aldo to move up to lightweight? If so, it seems completely unreasonable. Why would Aldo have taken a fight with McGregor for anything other than the featherweight belt?
Picture credit: Sportsfile
