Jose Aldo willing to take UFC to court over contract according to manager

Interim UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo’s ongoing saga with the UFC brass could get even uglier if both sides stand their ground.

After the UFC announced that Conor McGregor would be fighting Eddie Alvarez for the UFC lightweight championship at UFC 205, and would not be vacating the featherweight championship, Aldo requested that the promotion release him from his contract.

UFC President Dana White was quick to attempt to diffuse the situation, stating that the promotion would not release him from his contract, however they would be willing to work on getting him a fight on UFC 205 like they did with Khabib Nurmagomedov.

That didn’t sit too well with the interim featherweight champ, who was quick to fire back in an interview, revealing that he didn’t want a fight, but rather to be released from his contract so he could retire and move on to another sport.

Now, in an interview with Combate, Jose Aldo’s coach and manager, Andre Pederneiras, revealed that Aldo is willing to go as far as to take the situation to court:

“I think Dana and the new owners have to understand that there’s a completely unsatisfied employee who doesn’t want to continue,” Pederneiras said. “If that was in Brazil and a guy said ‘boss, I want to leave,’ I’d say ‘Ok, I can’t hold you.’ The contract we have in the UFC, ‘boss, I want to leave,’ the answer is ‘no, you’ll be stuck with me, you might not do anything, but you can’t leave here.’ Is that something nice?

“I think it creates dissatisfaction, and he will want to go to court. He would have to go to court to cut this contract. And the damage a dissatisfied person, someone like Aldo, talking sh*t to everyone about a lot of things, I think the company wouldn’t want a guy like this every day in the media talking trash. Since the guy doesn’t want to do it, let him leave! ‘I just want to leave, I don’t want to stay here anymore, I don’t want to fight here. I don’t want to be in anymore.’ We don’t want a war, we don’t want a fight, we don’t want to talk bad about anyone. We only want the right to say ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. It’s not about money, I don’t want to be here anymore.’”

“He was already pissed off with the situation of being left aside without an answer,” Pederneiras said. “You can’t do that with someone like Aldo. You can do that to someone who just entered the UFC now, but not with a guy that went undefeated for 10 years, not with a guy that was the first and only champion until he lost the belt in a 13-second situation, and earned his rematch, was fooled and it didn’t happen. I think the company has its financial side – I have a company and will always think on the financial side – but I won’t lie to my employee. If there’s no way to do it, there’s no way to do it. I won’t tell everybody something, put in the news for everyone to see, and then be caught in a lie.”