Ex-champ Jose Aldo not happy with display in UFC 237 loss: 'I've never fought so badly in my life'

If you think Jose Aldo’s performance at UFC 237 wasn’t quite on par with what you’d expect from him, you’re not alone.

Aldo, as it turns out, is right there with you.

Aldo (28-5 MMA, 10-4 UFC) met Alexander Volkanovski (20-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) in the pay-per-view main card of Saturday’s event at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro. Despite having the crowd enthusiastically in his favor, Aldo was upset by Volkanovski and suffered the first decision loss of his professional MMA career.

This Monday, Aldo took to Instagram to address the loss for the first time. And after thanking his fans and his entire team, the former UFC champion was very critical of his own performance.

“I’ve never fought so badly in my life,” a translated excerpt of Aldo’s post read. “No excuses at all, because that’s not me, but I know about my ability and talent and I can’t do that. Not taking away the merits from my opponent, who did his fight, but I’m sad at myself and put it all on myself, because I let it happen and didn’t do the fight that I should have. It’s over and on to the next one.”

The loss snapped a two-win streak for Aldo, who’d recovered from a pair of losses to current champ Max Holloway with knockouts of Jeremy Stephens and Renato Moicano. Aldo had made plans to retire in 2019, but told MMA Junkie before the bout that the perspective of re-claiming his title had caused him to reconsider that a little.

With that out of the picture for now, it’s hard to tell what that means for Aldo’s career. He currently has one fight left on his UFC contract.

Volkanovski, in turn, remains undefeated in the UFC and has made his plans rather clear. With wins over ex-title-challenger Chad Mendes and Aldo capping off his seven-fight run in the promotion, he believes he’s got a rock-solid case to be next in line for Holloway.

For complete coverage of UFC 237, check out the UFC Events section of the site.