Jose Aldo will 'no longer fight' after meeting with UFC, but won’t pursue contract-breaking lawsuit

Jose Aldo finally had his face-to-face meeting with the higher-ups at Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), including promotion president Dana White and new head matchmaker, Sean Shelby, after the interim-featherweight champion asked to be released from his contract a few weeks ago.

"Junior" spoke with the two UFC officials on Wednesday at Zuffa headquarters to air his grievances, which all began after Conor McGregor was booked to fight Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title at UFC 205 on Nov. 12, 2016 as opposed to unifying the the 145-pound title against him.

Still, after the sit down, Aldo told reporters that his stance hasn’t changed one bit.

"What the future will hold? Nobody knows, we'll have to wait and see," Aldo told MMA Fighting.

"At this moment, nobody knows, I don't know," Aldo said through his interpreter. "I came here from Brazil already with my ideas firmly fixed in my head and my current intention is to no longer fight, that hasn't changed, that's how I felt when I left Brazil, that's how I feel still today, but as for the future, nobody knows, we'll see."

Sorry, Max.

Nevertheless, Jose says the fact that UFC met with him is a positive since he had his chance to be heard. He also stated that he understands the promotion is going through plenty of transitions — see some of them here — following the $4 billion sale to WME-IMG earlier this year.

"Today was a first conversation, we might be headed down a better path, but there's a lot of transitions happening in the UFC and I'm sure they're going to have new ideas and priorities and methodologies. We'll see what direction they're going to take their business in and what that's going to mean for me."

Unlike Georges St-Pierre and his legal team, Aldo says he is not interested in taking his issues with UFC to court, as he has no plans to sue the biggest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion in the world.

"There's no reason to do that," Aldo said. "I'm not that kind of guy. I'm a man. I came here, no one made me come here. I chose to be here, I wanted to have a face-to-face conversation, man-to-man. I made my feelings known, not through statements made to third parties or misinterpretations. I wanted to sit down with Dana and Sean and tell them what I felt. That's it."

Aldo recently revealed that Dana White encouraged him to stay quiet when it comes to backing a potential fighter’s union, as he would get a "bigger slice of the pie" when compared to some of his fellow colleagues.

But, as Aldo reiterated after the meeting, he is not looking out for just himself.

"I don't think just of myself, I don't think of just Jose Aldo the fighter, I think of the whole category of fighters," Aldo said. "With the new ownership and all the transitions they're taking, I can only hope that we can come in with new ideas to benefit all the fighters, for things to improve that for everybody, not just for me."

As for what the future hold for Aldo, that remains to be seen, though the fact that he is personally talking to the UFC powers that be regarding his issues and hasn’t completely closed the communication channels, is definitely a good sign.