Controversies have often gripped the UFC over the years, with some fighters garnering attention for the wrong reasons. Even arguably the greatest featherweight ever, Jose Aldo couldn’t help but become a key figure in a conspiracy theory. Ahead of his UFC 307 showdown against Mario Bautista, let’s have a look at the recent controversy that involved Dana White and Co. allegedly exempting ‘Junior’ from the drug testing pool.

Jose Aldo, a two-time featherweight champion, has been one of the most recognized MMA legends who fought under Dana White‘s promotion. And if there’s one thing that the UFC CEO goes all out to do, it’s help his champions out, like he’s known to do for Conor McGregor and even Jon Jones. As such, there were recent speculations that White might have aided Aldo in getting through certain formalities before his 2024 return.

Did UFC waive the six-month drug testing requirement for Jose Aldo’s Return?

When there were talks about Conor McGregor making his return in 2023, he wasn’t even in the USADA testing pool, which required fighters to get tested for 6 months before returning to in-cage competition. Some even speculated that maybe Dana White will do a Brock Lesnar for the Irishman, a reference to the UFC 200 controversy when the former heavyweight champion returned to action against Mark Hunt without entering the testing pool and later tested positive for banned substances.

Well, Dana White didn’t do the same for Conor McGregor, but in another development, doubts crept in that maybe the 55-year-old had helped Jose Aldo bypass the testing process. In the wake of UFC’s new partnership with Drug Free Sport International, there were reports that ‘Junior’ had been allowed to compete against Jonathan Martinez without going through the 6-month testing period.

“As far as the rules for the program, nothing much changed with the new policy including rules surrounding fighters joining the UFC roster or athletes coming out of retirement, which requires six months of testing before being allowed to compete again,” reported ‘MMA Fighting’, highlighting that the 6-month rule applies to each and every professional fighter.

However, there was no concrete evidence of Dana White actually pulling any strings, but it did raise many doubts about UFC’s new anti-doping program. Meanwhile, there was another outlandish incident involving Jose Aldo back at UFC 189.

A bizarre incident involving the Nevada State Athletic Commission and Jose Aldo

After Dana White and Co. wrapped up UFC 189, a total of seven fighters came under the Nevada State Athletic Comission’s radar as they were asked to submit samples for drug tests. Among them was Jose Aldo, who might have passed the tests, but there were some major complications in the process. The Brazilian veteran was supposed to catch up with the authorized Mosier on 10th June 2015, but there were communication problems. However, they’d finally meet up the very next day with a cooperative Aldo.

Unfortunately, Mozier and Jose Aldo both lost contact with the urine sample due to the former’s visa trouble in Brazil. Mozier was even detained for a period after which he was released following the intervention of a local drug control officer. After submitting a second sample, the reports came out clean, and ‘Junior’ passed the drug test.

Things couldn’t have gotten any more complicated than they did for Aldo nine years ago, but the aforementioned incidents and conspiracies didn’t mar his status as a featherweight legend. What do you have to say about these instances?