Jose Aldo respects Marlon Vera, but ‘playing tennis and footvolley’ enough to prepare for grappling match

Jose Aldo will rematch Marlon Vera Sunday in Ecuador, this time under submission-only grappling rules at Hype, and isn’t worried about possibly being outworked by an active UFC fighter as he returns to competition 17 months after retiring from MMA.

Aldo, who won a decision against Vera when their met inside the octagon back in 2020 for his first victory as a bantamweight in the UFC, hasn’t done anything special in terms of training for the grappling showdown.

In fact, he has barely trained jiu-jitsu at all.

“I’ve been playing tennis and footvolley, brother,” Aldo told MMA Fighting before flying to Ecuador. “It’s been more than a year since I last set foot in a gym. That’s why I’m going. Man, I did jiu-jitsu my whole life, I used to compete every weekend, so… Everyone saw me in the UFC as a striker, but I’ve always been a high-level grappler. I’m in good shape.”

Aldo revealed he was first approached by Hype with an offer to face Jean Silva in Rio de Janeiro back in March, but turned it down. Hype reached out with another match a month later, this time in Sao Paulo, and again declined. Aldo said his friends went crazy “and wanted to beat me up” when he revealed how much he was set to get paid for the eight-minute match.

“Chito”, on the other hand, fought three times in the UFC since Aldo’s final octagon appearance, including a recent knockout win over Charles Jourdain, and was the one grappling Jean Silva to a draw earlier this year in Sao Paulo.

Aldo believes that playing other sports three times a day is more enough to hang with Vera on the mat, but his friend Jofre, the one assisting in this “camp,” spent the last few weeks trying to convince him to go back to the mats for a more serious preparation.

“He’s the one that’s worried, he keeps wanting to push me to train,” Aldo said with a laugh. “I say, ‘Come on, training is exhausting. Let’s train when we get there.’ It’s 10 minutes, no problem.”

Quito sits at an altitude of 9,350 feet above sea level, and the soccer fan in Aldo has watched multiple times how that affects players traveling from Brazil to Ecuador for international matches. Aldo doesn’t expect that to be a problem, nor Vera’s conditioning advantage for being active and having 10 wins by submission in MMA.

“I respect Marlon, I know what kind of physical condition he’s in,” Aldo said. “We were just recently at Anthony Pettis’ event a few years ago. I respect him and I know the quality of the athlete, but I spent my entire life doing jiu-jitsu. It’s not about underestimating the opponent. Now, if you put me in there with Mica Galvão, with someone from the jiu-jitsu world, then I’d say, ‘Fuck, then he’ll run right through me.’

“Now, a UFC fighter… Oh, if it’s Charles [Oliveira]. Charles is so good at jiu-jitsu, he’s a submission specialist. Okay, fuck, then I really have to train my ass off. With all the humility in the world, [if I’m afraid of getting submitted by Marlon Vera] then I might as well tear up my black belt, you know? Even though it’s at high altitude and all that, fuck… It’s not like it’s some impossible thing that I have to be thinking, ‘Oh, I have to [train].’ No, man, I’m going much more just to have fun. No pressure at all. Whether I get submitted or not, I’m fine with it.”