Jose Aldo turned down offer to fight Conor McGregor at UFC 196

Tuesday morning in the wake of Rafael dos Anjos withdrawing from UFC 196 with a broken foot there was talk of former UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo stepping in on short notice to fight Conor McGregor on March 5th.

While McGregor’s fight at UFC 196 was scheduled to be a lightweight bout, Aldo stated after his UFC 194 loss that he wants a rematch with McGregor regardless of whether or not the featherweight championship was on the line.

It was revealed that Aldo had in fact been training recently, and suddenly the possibility of McGregor vs. Aldo II seemed closer than ever before.

Unfortunately, Nova Uniao head coach Andre Pederneiras revealed to Combate that Aldo was offered the fight on short notice, but isn’t prepared.

MMAFighting has the translation:

“Dana (White) called me, telling what happened and asking if Aldo was in shape to fight. I said he wasn’t and that there wasn’t enough time, and unfortunately he wouldn’t be able to fight next week.”