Jose Aldo dominated the UFC‘s featherweight division from its inception to 2015. But since he lost his belt, Aldo campaigned in the bantamweight division.
Aldo whose full name is Jose Aldo da Silva Oliveira Junior is the UFC Hall of Famer who reigned as the promotion’s featherweight champion from 2011 to 2015. Junior was the fourth and final WEC featherweight champion. He was promoted to UFC featherweight champion when the two organizations merged in 2011.
Aldo went on to defend the 145-pound a record seven times and his reign of 1,848 days is the longest in the history of the division. Also known as Scarface, Aldo began his career as a featherweight fighting for Brazilian and English promotions. He moved up to the 155-pound weight class after winning his first 7 bouts but suffered the first loss of his MMA career at Jungle Fight 5.
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After that defeat, Aldo went undefeated for more than a decade as a featherweight. He finally tasted defeat at UFC 194 when he lost the UFC featherweight belt to Conor McGregor in that infamous seven-second knockout. Junior recaptured the featherweight gold when McGregor vacated the title. However, he lost it to Max Holloway in his first title defence.
Aldo then went 2-2 in his next four bouts and decided to drop to bantamweight. Aldo made the 136-pound upper limit but lost to Moraes. In his most recent bout at UFC 278, Jose weighed a fraction over the upper limit but when he took his clothes off, Aldo made the 136-pound weight cutoff.
For UFC 301, the Aldo vs Martinez fight will be fought at bantamweight which means Aldo will try to make 136 pounds again. However, since his last boxing bout against Espindola was in the lightweight division and boxing’s lightweight class has an upper limit of 135 pounds, Aldo isn’t expected to encounter problems making weight for the Martinez bout.