Aldo and Holloway Can Unify Title, but McGregor Rematch Is Ultimate Prize
Jose Aldo and Max Holloway have yet to agree on a date, but it looks like they'll get that pesky UFC featherweight title unified sometime early in 2017.
One version of it, anyway.
No matter what Aldo and Holloway do, a sizable portion of MMA fans will continue to believe the genuine article resides across the sea, in the hands of a plucky Irishman with a million-dollar wardrobe and a flamethrower for a tongue.
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Popular opinion may dictate that Conor McGregor still owns that belt, even if he never fights again at 145 pounds.
That will be a problem for whomever emerges from this mess as the UFC's undisputed champion. They can seize the hardware, but they might find widespread respect and acceptance more difficult to come by until they can secure a rematch with McGregor.
It makes you wonder if winning this incarnation of the title will be enough for either of these guys—both of them proud men and among the most amazing fighters in the world.
And if not, what can they do about it?
Matchmakers are still trying to get their unification bout scheduled for UFC 208 in Brooklyn, New York, on Feb. 11, according to a Twitter post late Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times' Lance Pugmire:
When Holloway defeated an overweight Anthony Pettis last Saturday at UFC 206 to become interim champion, he wasted no time calling out Aldo. He even had a snarky hashtag all ready to go.
This week, Aldo confirmed he'd planned on the February date all along, but then Holloway pumped the brakes. Not so fast, he seemed to say during an appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.
"I don't want to give up my Christmas," Holloway said, per MMA Fighting's Shaun Al-Shatti. "I don't want to give up my son's birthday on January 4 all for February 11 and the guy [Aldo] doesn't show up."
He added he'll have to check in with UFC brass before agreeing to any particulars—kind of a strange look for a guy who seemed raring to go as recently as last weekend.
Meanwhile, McGregor no doubt continues to laugh at the spectacle and take photos of himself manspreading all over his collection of luxury cars:
The official version of the 145-pound title hasn't seen a defense since December 2015, when Aldo lost his high-profile grudge match to McGregor in 13 seconds at UFC 194. After McGregor's red-hot start to 2016 made it unclear if he would ever return to featherweight to defend the title, Aldo won an interim version of the belt by defeating Frankie Edgar via unanimous decision at UFC 200 in July.
McGregor went on to beat Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title at UFC 205 and became the first fighter in company history to simultaneously hold championships in two weight classes.
The historic accomplishment didn't last long, however. Two weeks after McGregor beat Alvarez, the UFC stripped the Irishman of the featherweight strap, promoted Aldo to "undisputed" champ and set up Holloway vs. Pettis for an interim title.
Just to add one more layer to an already confusing situation, Pettis failed to make the 145-pound limit for his UFC 206 bout against Holloway. Had Pettis won, it could've thrown an additional wrench in the machinery of a division already reeling from McGregor's departure.
Luckily, Holloway took care of business, delivering a dominant performance en route to a third-round TKO win.
But now what?
After a chaotic 2016 that robbed the featherweight class of much of the momentum it built during McGregor's rise, both Aldo and Holloway find themselves in an unenviable spot.
That's especially true of Aldo, who has spent the last 12 months watching the killer reputation he'd cultivated over a dozen years as a professional fighter crumble to dust.
Aldo's spot as the greatest featherweight of all time seemed secure a bit more than a year ago, but that loss to McGregor sent him into a tailspin from which he has yet to recover. For a while, it looked like he might never fight in the UFC again. Even now that he says he's ready to return to active duty, there's no telling where his head is or what his relationship is like with his fight company bosses.
Aldo is still talking about an eventual rematch with McGregor, according to UFC.com's Brazilian iteration (via MMA Fighting's Guilherme Cruz), but in the immediate wake of his promotion back to "undisputed" champion, he gave a statement to Brazilian television station SporTV that is best read philosophically rather than literally.
"I think I've always been the champion, and I will always be the champion," Aldo said, via MMA Junkie's Steven Marrocco and Fernanda Prates. "As long as I'm at featherweight, no matter what happens, I'll keep being the champion…The minute I lost I knew, the next day, the belt would be mine again."
This quote, as head-scratching as it is, gets to the heart of why this is such a strange spot for Aldo.
After years of ruling the featherweight division with an iron fist, he suddenly looks—at least to some—like an illegitimate champion.
That stinks. He deserves better than that, but it's the natural byproduct of having McGregor stripped of the title and handed back to him.
Defeating Holloway won't undo that. It won't make Aldo seem like a more deserving champion. The only way for him to convince spectators to forget about the night McGregor spilled him onto the canvas like a tumbling stack of bricks will be to pursue McGregor, fight him again and win.
Short of that, it will be tough for Aldo to ever regain his previous stature—and that makes the featherweight division feel like a dead end for him. Until he avenges that loss, we'll always remember him like this:
Things won't be quite as bad for Holloway if he beats Aldo.
The 25-year-old Hawaii native has been streaking up the 145-pound ranks during the last three years. All told, he's won 10 straight fights and had fashioned himself into the division's heir apparent even before decimating Pettis at UFC 206.
Becoming just the second man to take out Aldo during the fighter's storied WEC/UFC career would go a long way toward solidifying Holloway as the featherweight division's rightful champion.
The specter of McGregor's dominance will still linger—especially since he defeated Holloway by unanimous decision in August 2013, when they were both just beginning their UFC careers. The loss wasn't nearly as ugly as Aldo's, and because Holloway has grown so much since then, the stigma may not follow him quite as badly.
But the featherweight division seems headed for an inevitable decline with McGregor gone. Even if Holloway becomes the full-time champ, it's possible he'd think about making the jump to lightweight to avenge his own loss, though so far he's playing it cool on that front.
"I ain't over here begging for fights," Holloway said this week, per Fox Sports' Damon Martin. "If that guy [McGregor] wants to fight me, he can come fight me. I ain't going to beg. We've got so [many] guys on their knees begging to fight him. If he wants to fight me, he can come see me."
One thing we know for sure is McGregor won't beg anyone in MMA for a fight, not so long as a date with him remains the biggest prize and the biggest payday in the sport.
In fact, it will be quite the opposite for any 145-pound fighter who wants to make a splash.
So long as McGregor continues to be so notable by his absence, it will be difficult for any new featherweight champ to fully emerge from the shadow of the little fella sitting on the hood of the Lamborghini.
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