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The talk around town last week was the apparent offer the UFC made to WEC featherweight champion Jose Aldo to make the jump to the lightweight division, move over to the UFC, and face former top contender Kenny Florian in his debut.
UFC president Dana White, when speaking with Comcast SportsNet’s Fight Fix show, confirmed the promotion did indeed make the offer, but that Aldo turned it down and opted to stay in the WEC for the time being.
“That is true,” he said. “Here’s the thing, Jose Aldo’s been talking about moving up to 155 pounds. Well, we had a slot and said, ‘alright, you want to move up to 155 pounds?’ and he said, ‘ah yeah, never mind.”
Aldo commented at the time that his managers and trainers opted to decline the fight at this time, and instead the world’s best featherweight will likely face another challenger at 145 pounds in January.
The desire for Aldo to compete at 155 pounds has been talked about for months, and considering the Brazilian’s dominance at featherweight everyone is curious at just how well he would do at the next weight class up.
White says the UFC will leave it up to Aldo as far as where he wants his career to go, but when the offer was made to go to 155 pounds this soon, it was just not the right time. Whether Aldo could potentially make that move in the next year is still up to him according to the UFC president.
“It depends on what this kid wants to do,” White said. “If he wants to stay in the WEC and defend that title, that’s cool. They were talking at one point about moving to 55, so we talked to him and said, ‘how’d you like to move to UFC’s 155-pound division and take on Kenny (Florian) and they turned it down.”
There is still speculation on who Aldo may face for his next title defense in the WEC as well. Rumors had pointed to Canadian striker Mark Hominick as the next choice, but Josh Grispi is also on the radar. Grispi holds a recent win over Hominick, and fights again on Nov. 11 against Erik Koch.
If Grispi is successful in his November fight, he may get the call to face Aldo, but only time will tell what the WEC’s final decision will be.
http://mmaweekly.com/ufc-confirms-aldo-was-offered-florian-fight-turned-it-down
