Few fighters are more qualified to break down the UFC 329 main event between Conor McGregor and Max Holloway than Jose Aldo.
The former UFC featherweight champion spent months in preparation to face both fighters in the past including two title bouts against Holloway. Now admittedly, Aldo only spent 13 seconds in the cage with McGregor after he got clipped with a devastating left hand that ended the fight in dramatic fashion in the first round.
But Aldo endured an entire training camp getting ready
for McGregor and then also went nearly 30 minutes with Holloway between their initial fight and the eventual rematch.
“They both have tremendous qualities,” Aldo told Covers.com, “I didn’t really get to fight Conor for very long. I had two opportunities to fight Max. The first one ended with a TKO in the fourth round. My fight with Conor ended in the first round, so it was over very quickly. I didn’t really get to feel his full skill set, but he’s obviously an extremely talented fighter.
“I can speak more confidently about Max’s style. He’s a very intelligent fighter with excellent boxing and a great understanding of boxing. He also has a tremendous ability to read shots and absorb them. Of course, nowadays, after taking so much damage throughout his career, he’s not quite the same as he was back when I fought him. He was in his prime, you could hit him all day and he’d still be there.”
Of course, Aldo has the same questions about McGregor heading into this fight as almost everybody else because the Irish superstar has been out of action for five years and he’s just days away from turning 38 years old.
Coming back from so much time off casts doubts in what version of McGregor is going to show up to the cage on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
“Nobody really knows where he’s at or what kind of performance he’s going to deliver,” Aldo said about McGregor. “He could perform like a 10 out of 10, or like a five. We just don’t know. He could get it done early, land some good shots and win the fight. Or maybe he can’t find Max and starts thinking, ‘Damn, I’m in trouble,’ and ends up fighting more cautiously. Nobody knows what his performance will look like.”
That’s why if forced to choose, Aldo favors Holloway to get the job done at UFC 329.
“To me, Max is the favorite,” Aldo said. “He’s active and still building his career. I can’t really judge Conor’s level because I haven’t seen him compete in a long time. I haven’t seen him inside the octagon, and I haven’t seen him training, so I don’t know where he’s at. I see Max fighting today, and he’s been putting on great performances. Conor is a complete question mark, we’ll find out on fight night.
“I’m not saying Max Holloway is a huge favorite. Not at all. But he has the edge because he’s active, he’s staying sharp, and I have no idea what Conor’s performance will look like. That said, Conor could walk in there and knock him out. That can absolutely happen. And it wouldn’t take anything away from Max if he got knocked out by Conor, because Conor has outstanding striking and excellent timing.”
Following his final fight in the UFC back in 2025, Aldo announced his retirement from the sport and he’s stuck to his guns thus far without competing again.
That said, Aldo rarely escapes any conversation related to McGregor without addressing a potential rematch after they fought once in 2015 but then never met again.
For his part, Aldo isn’t gunning to reignite some kind of longstanding rivalry with McGregor now and if anything, he actually feels like he’s on really good terms with his former opponent these days.
Add to that, Aldo admits he hasn’t been back to the gym for training in quite some time so he knows the days chasing a second fight against McGregor are over.
“I haven’t even stepped into a gym in over a year, so I don’t know what it would be like to come back to MMA,” Aldo confessed. “It’s not even something I think about. I think our paths ended when we fought all those years ago. If there wasn’t an immediate rematch, then he went one way and I went another. I moved down a weight class after that and he put on a lot of weight, got much bigger, and added a lot of muscle mass.
“I’m completely different. If you look at me today, I still weigh around 72kg (158 pounds). So the size difference is huge. There are too many factors that make that fight unrealistic now.”
