Can Aldo wash off the stink of the McGregor loss with a win over Holloway?
On Dec. 12, 2015, Jose Aldo's life's work was rendered an afterthought in just 13 seconds.
The psychological warfare conducted over a bevy of worldwide media appearances alongside nemesis Conor McGregor finally took its toll at UFC 194, where - in what can only be described as the most un-Aldo move - he recklessly charged at the man who'd been nothing but a thorn in his side over the previous several months, and ate one punch to the kisser that put him in a temporary coma.
Just like that, Aldo was no longer the only featherweight champion in UFC history, his decorated career suddenly defined not by his exploits in both the WEC cage and the Octagon, but by a single counter left hand.
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Cut to 18 months later. The 30-year-old has made his way back into the win column with his second decision over Frankie Edgar and gone from interim to undisputed champ thanks to a surreal sequence of events that saw McGregor stripped of the title he took from Aldo. The surprise adjustment spawned an interim featherweight championship bout between Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis at UFC 206, which Holloway took by third-round TKO. Aldo and Holloway now get to put a button on the entire affair and unify the titles in the main event of Saturday's UFC 212 in Rio de Janeiro.
But for Aldo, the mandate isn't so much to snatch Holloway's gold as it is to pick up where he left off before that disastrous December night in Las Vegas and issue a pointed reminder of just how insanely talented he is.
Before McGregor debunked the perception of his immortality with a single shot, Aldo had every fight fan convinced he was downright infallible. Armed with blistering kicks, otherworldly takedown defense, and stellar range control, the bulk of the Brazilian's triumphs came at the expense of both the WEC and UFC's best, from his double flying knee KO of Cub Swanson to a five-round beatdown of trailblazer Urijah Faber to saddling Mark Hominick with an extra head.
Of Aldo's eight WEC scalps, only Faber miraculously made it to the final horn. And while Hominick, Kenny Florian, Ricardo Lamas, and Chad Mendes went the full 25 minutes with him in the UFC, they only made it to the scorecards thanks to an increasingly conservative Aldo's tendency to take his foot off the gas in the championship rounds.
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Over three years after he bested Edgar in one such methodical effort, not only did the Brazilian beat him again at UFC 200, he did so far more convincingly, and not with a barrage of the vaunted leg kicks that have left many a man with post-traumatic stress, but with his hands. Just his hands.
And yet, the putrid stench of the starching he suffered at McGregor's left mitt unjustly follows him to Rio's Jeunesse Arena.
Since Aldo has resigned himself to the fact he may never avenge his only loss in the past 11-plus years, he can re-stake his claim as the greatest featherweight to have walked the earth with a vintage performance against Holloway, a winner of a division-best 10 straight looking to usher in a new guard at 145 pounds.
The pair of titleholders share only three opponents (Swanson, Lamas, and McGregor) over their combined 25 UFC appearances, and with a litany of contenders nipping at each of their heels, Aldo still has plenty of talented young takers off of which to build another illustrious run at the top and reduce the knockout heard 'round the world to a mere hiccup in an otherwise flawless tenure in the world's top fight factory. He just has to get through Holloway first.
Related: Will Max Holloway usher in a new era for the featherweight division?