White: Jose Aldo Refusing to Fight Anthony Pettis

UFC contender Anthony Pettis

Feathweight champion calls Anthony Pettis 'undeserving'

On August 3rd, featherweight champion Jose Aldo and Anthony Pettis are scheduled to meet in a battle of two of the best strikers in MMA, however, there now appears to be a major hiccup in the road to the bout as Dana White states that the 145 king doesn't want any part of "Showtime".

The UFC head-honcho explained the dilemma to the media following UFC 157:

“Jose Aldo came out and said, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m fighting Pettis. He’s absolutely refusing to fight Pettis — doesn’t think he deserves the shot.

“Andre Pederneiras was in England and he sat down with me and Lorenzo (Fertitta) and was like, ‘We don’t think he deserves it.’ “What do you mean you don’t think he deserves it? ‘Well, he might be the No. 1 guy at 155, but how does that make him the No. 1 guy (at 145)?’ Are you out of your f—ing mind? Are you serious? Did you seriously just ask me that question? It’s like if Aldo wanted to move up to 155, are we going to say he’s not the No. 1 contender? What are you talking about?…

“F—in’ right, [Aldo] is gonna fight Pettis. That fight’s on. He’s going to fight Pettis, or he’s not going to like how this is going to turn out.”

Pettis shocked the world, when at the UFC 156 post-fight press, he announced through Dana White that he wanted to fight Aldo rather than Benson Henderson or Gilbert Melendez for the lightweight title. And while many thought it would be unfair for Pettis to skip the line of deserving contenders such as Ricardo Lamas and The Korean Zombie, White couldn't let the idea of such an explosive fight slip through the cracks, and thus booked the match up.

For Aldo to state that Pettis is undeserving is somewhat ironic, considering he just happily fought and defeated former perennial lightweight contender Frankie Edgar, who as of their fight had also not proved his worth at featherweight. It's also interesting to note that Aldo has made no secret about his desire to fight at 155 lbs, so his dismissal comes as that much more of a shock as Pettis is already ranked as one of the top lightweights in the world and would therefore prove to be the perfect test.

The news of Aldo's uproar coincidentally coincides with some interesting remarks White recently stated:

"I can tell you this man, you f---ing call Joe Silva and turn down a fight, you might as well say f---ing rip up my contract. He's a mean little f---er. You don't call Joe Silva and tell him you don't want to f---ing fight anybody man. You might as well take the fight because it's going be worse if you don't. You might as well do it."

If we ever get to see Pettis vs. Aldo in a strikers dream match remains to be seen, however, the drama that will ensue following this news will no doubt be an interesting story to follow as the UFC brass has never taken to kindly to saying "no".

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