Jose
Aldo spent the better part of a decade in lockstep with
greatness.
The former
Ultimate Fighting Championship and
World Extreme Cagefighting titleholder announced his retirement
from mixed martial arts in September, leaving the stage while he
still had something left in the tank. Aldo closed out his career
with a 31-8 record, his resume highlighted by victories over
Frankie
Edgar (twice),
Chad Mendes
(twice),
Ricardo
Lamas,
Chan Sung
Jung,
Kenny
Florian and
Urijah
Faber. The
Nova Uniao cornerstone last competed on Aug. 20, when he wound
up on the wrong side of a unanimous decision against
Merab
Dvalishvili in their three-round pairing at UFC 278.
As Aldo moves on to the next chapter in his life, a look at some of
the numbers that accompanied him throughout his MMA journey:
36: Years of age for Aldo, who was born on Sept. 9, 1986 in Manaus,
Brazil.
19: Consecutive years in which Aldo has fought at least once. In
addition to his 0-1 mark in 2022, he went 2-0 in 2004, 5-1 in 2005,
1-0 in 2006, 2-0 in 2007, 2-0 in 2008, 4-0 in 2009, 2-0 in 2010,
2-0 in 2011, 1-0 in 2012, 2-0 in 2013, 2-0 in 2014, 0-1 in 2015,
1-0 in 2016, 0-2 in 2017, 1-0 in 2018, 1-2 in 2019, 1-1 in 2020 and
2-0 in 2021.
17: Aldo victories by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 55% of his career total. His list of UFC victims: Mendes, Jung,
Renato
Carneiro and
Jeremy
Stephens. Aldo holds one other victory by submission (3%)—he
dispatched
Luiz de
Paula with an arm-triangle choke at a Shooto Brazil event in
2005—and 13 more by decision (42%).
8: Seconds needed for Aldo to bury
Cub Swanson
with a flying knee and follow-up punches at WEC 41 on June 7, 2009.
It went down as his fastest finish in 39 professional
appearances.
114: Significant strikes landed by Aldo in a unanimous decision
over former
Resurrection Fighting Alliance titleholder
Pedro
Munhoz at UFC 265 in August 2021. It established a new
high-water mark for the Brazilian, surpassing his previous best of
102.
2,037: Days spent by Aldo as undisputed UFC featherweight champion,
his time at the top spread across two reigns. He held the title
from Nov. 20, 2010 to Dec. 12, 2015 and again from Nov. 26, 2016 to
June 3, 2017.
1: Submission loss on the Aldo ledger. He bowed to a rear-naked
choke from
Luciano
Azevedo under the
Jungle
Fight banner in 2005.
406,500: Dollars in post-fight bonuses banked by Aldo across his 28
appearances in the WEC and the UFC. He was awarded “Fight of the
Night” on four occasions, “Knockout of the Night” three times and
“Performance of the Night” twice.
6: Countries in which Aldo has suited up as a mixed martial artist.
He went 15-4 in the United States, 11-3 in his native Brazil, 2-0
in England, 2-0 in Canada, 1-0 in Japan and 0-1 in the United Arab
Emirates.
.768: Cumulative winning percentage between the seven
men—Dvalishvili, Azevedo,
Max
Holloway (twice),
Petr Yan,
Marlon
Moraes,
Alexander
Volkanovski and
Conor
McGregor—who defeated Aldo. They boast a combined record of
141-42-2.