José Aldo. Photo: Josh Hedges
As he entered to defend his title for the first time at WEC 48 this Saturday, Jose Aldo was received with thunderous boos. His adversary, Urijah Faber, is a a native of Sacramento, where the bout was held. Once the showdown was over, after dominating the action and frustrating the fans of the “California Kid”, Aldo pursued his applause.
“Urijah’s a great champion. I know Sacramento’s his town and everyone loves him, but I too have great affection for Sacramento. When they told me the fight could be here, I asked that it would. It was here where I fought for the first time in the WEC and I would like for the public in the city to adopt me too,” he said, content with his unanimous decision win.
“I expected a great fight and to me it was.”
In the break before the fifth round, Aldo’s trainer, Andre Pederneiras, was explicit: “No ground. Aim for his legs and go for them.”
The champion explained, in the end, why he had to drop the leg kicks, the strategy tried and true:
“I felt I was dominating the fight. It’s just that he saw that was what I was going for and hid the leg. I wasn’t going to expose myself to his right hook, which is really strong. I sought to play it safe. He switched base when I was going to kick and that made things harder.”
In seven WEC fights, this was the first time the Brazilian didn’t get the knockout. Regardless, he promised his next outing will be better.
“Every time I’m here, I fight to finish as quickly as possible.”