What will 2 losses in more than 10 years really mean for Jose Aldo's legacy?

Jose Aldo had barely scraped himself off the mat at UFC 212 and already the career obituaries had started up on social media. Even before his third-round TKO loss to Max Holloway this past Saturday, words like “tarnish” had begun to follow words like “legacy,” all because of his knockout loss to Conor McGregor some 18 months prior.

It’s a strange and sad twist for a fighter who was so good for so long. Aldo (26-3 MMA, 8-2 UFC) won 18 straight fights and went 10 years without a loss. He held the WEC and then the UFC title for six years, uninterrupted.

Then he lost two fights in a year and a half, against two of the best fighters currently in the UFC, and now his rare failures threaten to overshadow his many triumphs.

It’s a fair question, trying to figure out how to weigh defeats against victories in a fighter’s legacy. But for some reason, it’s a formula that seems unevenly applied, depending on the fighter.

Anderson Silva suffered two losses as UFC champ, and then two more in the non-championship years that followed. Chuck Liddell lost the UFC light heavyweight title via knockout, and then won just one fight in his next five attempts before retiring. Brock Lesnar? He was barely above .500 in his brief but memorable time with the UFC. Nick Diaz, who, in the eyes of many fans, is so legendary as to be a sort of stoned Paul Bunyan, hasn’t won a fight since 2011.

Defeat doesn’t usually define a fighter in this sport, if only because it’s so common. You stick around in MMA for any length of time, and eventually you’re going to be the one standing there and sadly clapping as the other guy gets his hand raised. So why does it seem like Aldo’s two losses are being treated like career armageddon?

Some of it is the proximity in time. Aldo’s losses are both fresh in the collective memory. It’s easy now to remember Liddell as the guy doing the Conan pose in reverse after a win rather than as the guy waking up on the floor after a loss. Enough time has passed that, consciously or otherwise, we get to choose how we want to remember him.

Another part of it is how the losses fit into the greater narrative. For Aldo, McGregor emerged as a kind of career-defining rival, someone with the power and charisma to elevate his bouts from hardcore fan fodder to mainstream importance. It was the pairing that launched a world tour, when his previous fights were doing well to launch a video blog.

Losing that rivalry fight stings. We remember Tito Ortiz for a lot of things (cracked skull, anyone?), but when you talk about his place in the all-time light heavyweight rankings, you can’t help but mention his two losses to Liddell. It’s the same with Rich Franklin and Silva. Or Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.

The big difference is that, to date, Aldo has gotten only one crack at McGregor (whereas McGregor got two shots at Nate Diaz, the rival who beat him). After Aldo’s loss, McGregor ascended to a higher level both literally and figuratively, leaving Aldo to reclaim a version of the UFC featherweight title only to lose it again to Holloway.

It’s a rough 18 months, to be sure, but Aldo is still just 30. He’s already declared his intention to rise again, so it’s not as if the whole story has been written here.

And yet, short of revenge against one or both of the men who defeated him, it’s hard to imagine him turning the current narrative upside-down. In that way, Aldo seems like a victim of his own success. He’s lost so few fights that it means so much more to be one of the few to beat him.

But history advises caution in these instances. Aldo could easily fight for another five years or more. There may be triumphs and failures still to come. Things could get better, just as they could also get so much worse.

If those who came before him are any indication, don’t be surprised if it turns out to be one and then the other.

For more on UFC 212, check out the UFC Events section of the site.