Aldo Wanted Florian Fight, Manager Andre Pederneiras Doesn’t

UFC offered WEC featherweight champ Aldo a lightweight bout between himself and Kenny Florian, although Aldo was all for it manager Andre Pederneiras wasn’t. He explains his reason to Tatame.com:

 


 

“A counter-offer was made with a fight between Aldo and Kenny Florian. They offered us this and I was the first to decline it. Aldo fighting [Frankie Edgar], the fourth in the world, is one thing. It’s the champion of the event fighting a champion of the same organization, but on the weight division above. It’s the same thing that Ultimate confronts champions of two different divisions of the event … When they said it’d be Kenny Florian, it’s not that he’s not a tough guy, I think he’s an excellent athlete, but he’s coming from a bad result and, unfortunately for him, he was never Ultimate’s champion, and now he’s not even on the top 10 pound by pound, so I couldn’t see why this fight should happen. Who turned the proposal down was me, and nobody else. Aldo wanted to fight, but who turned it down was me because I understand this fight wouldn’t bring any benefit to him, independently that Kenny Florian is a great fighter or not … If they have offered Sean Sherk, on a similar situation, maybe I’d have accepted, it was more likely. He was a guy coming from a win and he once was the champion of the event, so we declined the offer because of that. It wasn’t because we were afraid of the other guy, it was because I thought I wasn’t worth it.”

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