Beaten by Conor McGregor, Jose Aldo Searches for His New Place in the World

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the worst position to hold in a fighting organization is that of the gatekeeper: the perpetual number two who failed in his attempt or attempts at winning the title but who remains the clear best among all the others within their division. It's a liminal state with no upside: only defeat changes your status.

For professional athletes, and in particular professional fighters, who by their nature loathe losing like a sickness, the day you realize that you've taken on gatekeeper status—where others prove their worth by going through you to a place you'll never get to again, to get an opportunity you were never able to seize— must be a kind of emotional death, a psychic catastrophe, worse even than being a fighter on a three-fight losing streak waiting for the inevitable pink slip. At least those fighters have grown accustomed over time to their place in the world: With each loss they could see their fate moving closer and coming clearer into view. The gatekeeper, on the other, wakes up one day to find himself in limbo. He just senses his newfound obsolescence. Senses it down in his guts and his bones.

But I'm beginning to think there is a fate even worse than that of the lowly gatekeeper: that of the formerly invincible and godlike champion cast down into the realm of the painfully mortal. First we witnessed it in December with Ronda Rousey, after her bruising loss to Holly Holm, and now we're seeing it again with Jose Aldo: the burden of former indestructibility, the labyrinth of dashed perfection, the overwhelming confusion of impossible defeat. Where do you go after you've been the mythical, undefeatable number one forever? Who do you fight? Who are you?

Rousey dealt with her descent by quarantining herself away from the world that made her in the hopes of disappearing completely. And considering her public identity was so wrapped up in her indestructibility, how could anyone blame her for avoiding the public once that indestructibility was gone? How could she face the world no longer knowing her place in it? It's the same thing with Jose Aldo; he's just taking a different tack: that of the wronged and aggrieved True Champion, knocked from his perch by a fluke and now, in defiance of all the laws of justice and decency, being denied his chance at a rematch. Like Lear on his heath, Aldo has begun to flail in the face of the storm, cosmically unsure of his place in the world. And how can we blame him for that? He's been universally acknowledged as the great unbeateable for six years, which means his entire adult life has been spent in that one reality, the reality of the king, and now it's all been dashed to pieces.

Unlike most heroes crashed down to earth, however, Aldo isn't even being given a chance at redemption. Conor McGregor took his soul and then ran to the lightweight division with Aldo's belt around his waist. And now Aldo is realizing that to fight anyone else besides McGregor would run contrary to the spirit of the Myth of Jose Aldo, to the story of the great invincible one. After all, what does Jose Aldo get from fighting Frankie Edgar or Chad Mendez or Max Holloway now but mortality and an existential crisis? For a former great like Aldo there's only either a shot at redemption or, like Rousey, a retreat from the world. It's McGregor or a monastery.

Aldo must sense this. Which is why he announced on Instagram yesterday that he will accept no fight that isn't for the championship belt or a return fight with McGregor, putting his foot down after five years as a loyal and quiet servant of the UFC.

"I was quiet for awhile because I was waiting for my rematch based on how the fight went down," Aldo wrote. "In fact, I was already training for it, but apparently I was wrong. So I wanted to make something clear to the UFC: For everything I have done, everything I have accepted and mostly how the fight ended, I will not accept any other fight other than a title shot.

"My only exception would be fighting [McGregor], at any time, anywhere, and once that he is afraid and knows that I'm gonna win."

I don't believe Jose Aldo sent this message just because he wants revenge on McGregor or because he feels, as the longtime best featherweight in the world and a longtime UFC loyalist, he deserves an immediate rematch (immediate rematches being all the rage in the UFC these days) and that an injustice is being done if he doesn't get it. Those concerns seem too small somehow, too tied to the earth and its passing concerns. I believe Jose Aldo senses that his knowledge of himself is at stake, that he has no place in the world of MMA if he's not either defending or challenging for the belt, that his role in his own story is meaningless if he has to shuffle and slog around in the muck with other mere contenders and mortals. For the first time in his career, the fog has descended on Jose Aldo and he can't see the way out or in. Every road at this point just leads to the average and everyday, which is an intolerable state for a former myth.

Unfortunately for Aldo UFC President Dana White is in the fight-making business, not the existential crisis-management business, and he sees no upside to a return match between McGregor, who is setting the world on fire, and Aldo, who is being consumed along with everyone else.

Appearing on the Opie With Jim Norton radio show yesterday White said a rematch between McGregor and Aldo won't be happening anytime soon. "It's one of those things; we made the fight the first time and he got hurt and had to pull out," White said. "Then we made it again, and it ended in 13 seconds. It's tough to make that fight again right away."

Which means if Aldo really refuses to fight anyone but Conor McGregor, the former greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world will now have to watch while his conquerer defies the world and history and goes off to win his second championship belt, like some kind of god. All Aldo can hope for is that McGregor either fails in his quest and comes back to the featherweight division, chastened, or that he grasps his glory quickly and then (noblesse oblige) gives Aldo a chance to redeem himself. Which is a brutal place for a man like Jose Aldo to be: to have to wait for his chance at glory, to have to wait for a shot at redemption, to witness the ascent of the man that snatched his glory from him in a flash and the man who made his redemption necessary and hope he gets another chance at him.

Pity poor Jose Aldo. He's in purgatory now.