UFC champ Jose Aldo responds to Dana White's criticism
Of all of UFC president Dana White's recent, unhinged and unadulterated moments, his criticism of featherweight champ Jose Aldo earlier this month stood out. Even after Aldo soundly beat Ricardo Lamas to earn his 17th straight win, White somehow found a way to bash "Scarface."
“The thing about Jose Aldo that drives me crazy is the kid has all the talent in the world,” White told ESPN.com.
“He’s explosive, fast. He can do anything but he just lays back and doesn’t let anything go."
Right, Dana. Like Aldo held back with kick after thundering kick to the shoulder of Chan Sung Jung en route to a nasty TKO win in his prior fight once he realized the Korean was hurt.
Or, when Aldo defended a take down from Chad Mendes, spun around and knocked him out with a knee with less than a second left in the first round of a prior title defense in 2012. Or his crushing TKO win over Mike Brown or double flying knee KO of Cub Swanson or – the point is, there are more exciting highlight reel finish examples from Aldo's career than we have time to go into here now.
Of Aldo's 24 career professional MMA wins, sixteen have been finishes.
Aldo can't help it when he unloads on a guy like Lamas or Kenny Florian for five rounds and they are too tough to go down. Fighting is hard.
Much harder than a non-fighter, corporate executive like White can understand. He could, of course, still be respectful of that which he doesn't understand.
Aldo recently responded to White's criticism and doesn't seem to put much stock into it. "I never fought so well like in my last fight," Aldo told Guilherme Cruz in a recent interview.
"I attacked him the whole time. I did my best. We need to know how to handle the criticism. You dedicate and suffer a lot to showcase your technique and ability, things that few people can do, and some people say you’re laying back. It’s tough, but I don’t care about this."
Aldo has not lost in eight and a half years and believes that he's as strong as ever, if smarter. "I don’t think I have slowed down," he went on.
"I may be more strategic, but offensive as always. I attacked a lot in my last fight. We always try the knockout but it’s hard to get it if the opponent always runs away."
At the end of the day, the Brazilian champ knows that there are no true conciliation prizes for losers, no matter how exciting they are.
"If you lose, no one will remember you, but if you’re the champion they will always remember you. I want to keep winning, no matter what."
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