Props: Sherdog.com
Quoteworthy:
"It was such a really tough task for me to convince him not to fight. He wanted to fight anyway. He was really excited to make his UFC debut, but I told him [fighting] in such a crisis state, he may have really serious problems. He argued that he wanted to fight anyway, that people would think he was chickening out, but I insisted and convinced him ... It was really hard. It was like hell for me. He was really disappointed and even cried after we made the decision. But finally, now we made the right decision. He’ll start physiotherapy and I think, in three months, he can finally make his Octagon debut."
Head of Nova Uniao, Andre Pederneiras, reveals the difficulty in convincing newly-minted UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo to withdraw from his UFC 125 title defense against Josh Grispi after suffering from chronic pain in his arm due to "a reduction of the space between some vertebrae, and between C5 and C6, [that] was touching the medulla." Now the Brazilian phenom will be forced to recuperate on the sidelines to avoid future surgery and may return in as little as three months. Does "The Fluke" wait him out? Or will the UFC replace "Junior" on the Jan. 1 pay-per-view?
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