Before Anderson Silva stepped in as a late replacement to fight Stephen Bonnar at UFC 153, the biggest story on the card was Featherweight champion Jose Aldo. Originally scheduled for UFC 147, his fight with Erik Koch was moved to UFC 153 after Aldo suffered an injury. Then, only a few weeks before the rescheduled bout, Koch was injured and replaced by former Lightweight champ Frankie Edgar. In stark contrast to most injury replacements, this one was met with praise. Edgar vs. Aldo is a fight fans have been talking about since Edgar took the Lightweight title. Unfortunately, Aldo was again injured in a motorcycle accident and eventually pulled out of the fight.
Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting caught up with Aldo in Brazil to get more details about the accident and the delayed decision to withdrawal form the fight:
I was riding along on the main road. I was on the right hand side of the road. There was a lady on my left who wanted to move into the street that I was just about to cross. I tried to do the curve with her but I didn't manage and I backed into her car.
I wanted to fight. I really wanted to do it, but then when my coach saw me working out he saw that I wasn't 100%. He told it me it was best to stop. It really disappointed me because it was a great challenge. I wanted to do this fight. But now that I've stopped to think about it, it was the correct decision.
Ariel followed up by asking who Jose would prefer to fight upon his return to action. Aldo confirmed that he wants the higher profile fight with Edgar. He also wanted to clear up his previous statement that implied he wanted to kick Frankie out of the Featherweight division:
I'm not going to kick him out. What I said is he's not going to be a champion in it. So if he wants to be a champion he has to go back to his [division]. If he wants to come down to my class and he wants to be second, that's ok. Because I'm going to continue to be the champion.
Aldo also explained that his leg is healing well and he's just waiting on medical clearance to begin training again. Since Edgar has not been scheduled a new opponent and it's the biggest fight to be made at Featherweight, I think it's safe to assume the highly anticipated super fight will happen after Aldo's cleared.
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