Aldo’s coach says UFC blocked Aldo vs. Pettis fight

While UFC President Dana White is on board with Conor McGregor’s plan to move up to lightweight and fight Rafael dos Anjos for the UFC lightweight championship in order to simultaneously hold the UFC featherweight and lightweight championship belts, Jose Aldo’s coach thinks McGregor should vacate the featherweight strap.

McGregor will fight Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 197 on March 5th, and then will likely defend his UFC featherweight championship at UFC 200, most likely against Frankie Edgar, however Andre Pederneiras thinks Aldo and Edgar should fight for an interim featherweight championship in the meantime.

He spoke to Sherdog:

“If Conor goes up he should relinquish the featherweight belt. We had an issue with Anthony Pettis in the past that was actually created by me. Aldo wanted to go up and fight for the lightweight title and the UFC said no. Pettis then decided he wanted to come down to featherweight to fight for the title. Originally we said no, as he wasn’t even the lightweight champion at the time and wanted to go straight into a featherweight title match. When he won the lightweight belt I tweeted at him during the press conference. ‘Pettis are you going to give up your 155 belt to face Aldo at 145?’ He answered, ‘No!’, and Dana [White] immediately replied that’s not my place to get involved and that’s something that’s not my option.”

“When you build a sport you need to follow rules and the rules need to be the same for everyone regardless of their name.”