José Aldo told a media day in Rio de Janeiro yesterday how a spy inside Frankie Edgar’s camp helped him to construct the game plan which led to a comfortable points victory for the Brazilian at UFC 200.
‘Scarface’ produced a vintage performance against Edgar, one which allowed him to claim the UFC interim featherweight championship. Although many favoured Edgar going into the bout – given his impressive run with wins over Cub Swanson, Urijah Faber and Chad Mendes – Aldo was able to shut him down in what turned out to be a surprisingly one-sided fight.
Now it seems there may have been a very good reason as to how Aldo was able to shut Edgar down so effectively over the course of the 25 minute rematch. Speaking in Brazil yesterday, Aldo revealed he had a spy in Edgar’s camp throughout fight week.
“We had some spies over on his side, where he was training all week,” Aldo revealed. “They came and told us what he was doing. So I had to hold off on the kicks and on the left hand since he was looking to counter on that.”
Just to make sure Aldo wasn’t joking, one of the reporters asked him if this was really true and the Nova Uniao fighter was adamant.
“Of course I had [spies]. Otherwise, why wouldn’t I kick? That’s my instinct,” Aldo said. “So we always have a spy. We send someone to be a part of that training [room] and then they give us information. We get that information and know what they are training.”
Aldo then went on to admit that not only was this not the first time he’s used this tactic, but it has become almost routine when strategizing and preparing for an opponent in the days leading up to fight night.
“Thank God it always happens,” Aldo said. “We always have Brazilians in the other corners. When I go train in the first day, I also see the list of cornerman. And, if there’s a Brazilian, we go after him and ask him to take a look, because that helps us out a lot.”
Following this revelation it appears Edgar may have found the spy as he went to twitter proclaiming he had got the ‘rat’.
Aldo now waits for Conor McGregor, who is likely to drop back down to 145lbs following his rematch with Nate Diaz at UFC 202, and unify the UFC featherweight championship.
