Champion Jose Aldo Doesn't think Rousey Will or Should Come Back

Can it really be that champion Jose Aldo does not think that former UFC champion Ronda Rousey will not return back to fighting after her loss to Holly Holm his past Saturday at UFC 193 in Melbourne Australia. The current UFC pound for pound champion says that.

"I think it’s really hard for her to return to fighting," Aldo said. "Her career has taken a different direction. If I’m making a lot of money doing movies or something else, I’d go that direction too. Am I going to mess my face up getting punched in the face? You’re crazy [laughs]. In my opinion, I don’t think (she fights again). If she comes back, of course she can (win the title). She was always a fighter, but if I were her, I wouldn’t come back."




"I see this as Gina’s situation," said Aldo, comparing Rousey’s loss to Cris Cyborg’s win over Gina Carano at Strikeforce. "Gina was a great fighter and went her way to become an actress after she lost to Cyborg, and she’s getting more attention than if she was still fighting. No diet, not getting punched in the face, nothing."

"I think the legacy Ronda leaves behind is that she changed women’s MMA," Aldo said. "She put it where no one ever imagined, where even Dana White said it would never be, and it is now. That’s her legacy. She has done a lot for women’s sport."

Which may seem a bit ironic considering that interim champion Conor McGregor has been saying the same thing about Jose Aldo since his championship fight pull out at UFC 189.

“I have beaten him already,” McGregor said to GQ magazine. “He is dead. Look at his body language. His body is weak and his mind is weaker. I can smell the lack of confidence. If the mind is not in it, the body won’t follow. He cannot beat me. He knows it. It’s why he went running last time… I can hear it in his voice, I can see it in his eyes, I know when a man is beaten, and he is beaten mentally. I still don’t think he will show. I am trying to be optimistic but I am never wrong, I always predict the outcome of my fights and I am never wrong.”

Can the champion really believe that the difference between men's and women's MMA is so far apart that Ronda Rousey will walk away with her legacy rather than come back to fight in be a champion again? Against a fighter like Holly Holm who was so dominant that it seems impossible for her to even come back and win. Do fans really believe that Ronda Rousey will take the Gina Carano way out of this sport? Or do fans believe people like her former judo coach Justin Flores who says that she'll come back and leave an even bigger mark on her legacy.

“These click-bait stories (they) run diminish all the hard work we do and undermine just how important her judo takedowns, transitions and submissions are,” Flores said. “Many of these publications do zero research and are now turning on her, slamming the most popular, talented and hardworking athlete I have ever known after a performance that was not to her normal standard that we all know, expect and are used to seeing.
“I will do everything in my power to make the necessary adjustments to help her.”

“Holly fought a great fight,” Flores said. “But there’s so many different variables with this. Ronda tried to go for takedowns. She tried to do things. She tried to incorporate her clinch. She tried to do these things.”

“She has this hype she has to live up to by winning in 12 seconds or winning in 15 seconds – something that’s like so unbelievable, it surpasses her legend that she’s built,” Flores said. “That’s so much pressure. I think that’s part of why things happened the way they did. There was so much anxiety and things circling before the fight, it kind of manifested that way."

“As a competitor, a win is a win. But for her, for how much she’s steamrolled people and how much it’s affected her psychologically – she has to outdo the last performance. That’s impossible.”

“I think the dust has to settle,” Flores admitted. “But after that, I think she has to find her motivation – and I think she will. There’s no doubt. I’ve seen her lose before, and her world was over. It didn’t make sense. Black was white. Day was night, and nothing made sense, but she was able to step back up. Obviously, that was a different stage, and she’s under a much bigger microscope now, so everything is amplified. But a loss is a loss still, if it’s getting knocked out or just having a referee say you lost in judo."

“I think she’ll be able to pull it all back together. It’s just that timeline, I think, may not be as quick as in judo past just because of the toll it’s takes physically. But there’s no doubt in my mind she’ll come back.”

“I have seen Ronda lose many times over the years at the highest level of judo competition first-hand, which is a dangerous thing for her future opponents,” Flores said. “I promise she will be back and make all the necessary adjustments after regrouping."

“Look out MMA world. Every great hero has trials and tribulations and loss – it’s how she recovers and comes back that will mark her legacy as the greatest of all time. Mark my words.”