Jose Aldo Retires After UFC 278, According To Merab Dvalishvili

James Herrick/UFC/August 22, 2022

Last Modified: February 20, 2024

Jose Aldo Retires After UFC 278, According To Merab Dvalishvili

Jose Aldo is retiring from MMA after his fight with Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 278. Aldo has yet to announce his retirement, but Dvalishvili revealed that Aldo said he was retiring in the octagon during UFC 278. Dvalishvili discussed the situation on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.

“When he was down and I [went] to shake his hand and tell him, ‘Thank you so much for the fight,’ and I go to respect him, he was down, and I tried to help him, and he was telling me, he said, ‘That means this is my last fight, because it was my last run to title,’” Dvalishvili said. “And then he said, ‘I guess I’m done.’
“It was a very emotional moment. That’s why I was talking to him. I said, ‘You’re amazing, you did so much, you don’t have anything to prove, you’re a legend – you’re a king.’ I was a little bit heartbroken.”
Quote via MMA Fighting

At the moment, Aldo’s retirement is not official. He made an announcement on his Instagram, but it did not include anything regarding his retirement. Meanwhile, Aldo did not participate in the usual tradition of leaving his gloves in the octagon to signal his retirement and he did not speak to the media after the fight. However, it would be reasonable for Aldo to retire after UFC 278. Aldo planned on beating Dvalishvili and winning the belt before retiring. This loss prevents that from becoming a reality.

Aldo had a tremendous career which started in 2005. By 2008, he was in the WEC. In the WEC, Aldo started 5-0 which led him to a featherweight title fight against Mike Brown. In that fight, he beat Brown to become the WEC featherweight champion and he never looked back. Aldo proceeded to defend the belt twice.

In 2010, the UFC absorbed the WEC. As a result, the UFC created the featherweight division and Aldo was crowned the inaugural champion. From there, his title reign continued as defended the UFC featherweight championship eight times. Aldo was eventually named the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world while he was riding a historic 18-fight win streak. This came crashing down when he was famously knocked out by Conor McGregor in 13 seconds.

Things got rocky for Aldo after his loss to McGregor as that started a seven-fight stretch that saw him go 3-4. In fairness, those losses came to McGregor, Alexander Volkanovski, and Max Holloway. All three of those fighters are current or former UFC champions.

After the disappointing stretch, he moved down to bantamweight. Things did not start great as he lost a questionable decision to Marlon Moraes. However, the UFC thought he won and offered him a title opportunity against Petr Yan at UFC 251, but he was unable to leave victorious.

Shortly after, Aldo started his final climb towards UFC. It started great as he beat Marlon Vera, Pedro Munhoz, and Rob Font, who are all serious threats in the bantamweight division. However, as previously mentioned Dvalishvili beat Aldo at UFC 278 and ended his climb towards the title.

Aldo’s career was memorable, to say the least. At this point, he is widely considered the UFC featherweight GOAT. Plus, he nearly captured a second title in a new weight class during the final stage of his career. More importantly, he was one of the first legends of MMA and he helped grow UFC domestically and internationally. His impact during the late 2000s and early 2010s can only be compared to MMA legends like George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva.