When Mario Bautista returns to action at UFC 316, he’ll be eight months removed from his win over Jose Aldo and he’s more than ready to put all the drama surrounding that fight behind him.
In what turned out to be a grueling back-and-forth affair, Bautista gutted out a split-decision win but there was immediate blowback that he didn’t deserve the nod and he received plenty of angry reactions about his game plan used to negate many of Aldo’s best weapons. What should have been a celebration for the biggest win of his career turned into Bautista defending his performance, and the whole ugly mess got drummed up again when Aldo returned for his recent fight against Aiemann Zahabi at UFC 315.
The whole ordeal was annoying, but Bautista recognized it had a lot more to do with Aldo being one of the most popular and well-liked fighters in history and far less to do with him.
“Everyone loves Jose Aldo and everyone wants to see the old Jose Aldo,” Bautista told MMA Fighting. “The highlights, all the things he could do, and I think they’re just mad that I shut it all down and I wasn’t going to allow it to happen.”
Bautista says you have to look no further than Aldo’s performance against Zahabi to realize why he wasn’t going to play any games with the Brazilian or attempt to turn their fight into a three-round slugfest.
While Zahabi was able to weather a heavy storm in the third round before earning the unanimous decision win, Aldo blasted him with a barrage of shots that nearly finished the fight. That was all the evidence Bautista needed to show why he didn’t want to engage in that kind of war with Aldo because Zahabi was nearly finished, and he could have ultimately gone home with a loss on his record based on how that fight played out.
“[Aiemann] Zahabi, he won the fight and he shut him down as well and gassed him at the end, but he took a soccer kick to the face for his troubles,” Bautista said. “Credit to Zahabi, he took that shot and got back up and put it back on Aldo.
“[But] you never know. That ref could have jumped in as soon as that soccer kick came to the face, and he fell back like that and that would be the end of the fight and you lose that. It’s crazy.”
Obviously, Bautista holds no ill will towards Aldo that he was upset with how their fight ended, but he won’t apologize for doing whatever it took to win that night.
As upsetting as it was at the time, Bautista has long since moved on and he knows a great performance against Patchy Mix at UFC 316 will change the narrative on him again.
“Years from now you’re going to go Tapology and scroll down and you’re going to see a green [mark for a win] and it’s going to say Jose Aldo,” Bautista said. “People are going to forget and that’s all that matters.
“I’m just excited to have this fight and get past all that. We’ll see. That’s part of the game. It’s something I get to deal with once you get to the top. You’re going to have moments like these. You never know what’s going to come your way and you’ve just got to deal with it.”
