(Jose, don’t you know who his cousin is, bro?)

In a interview with TATAME this weekend WEC featherweight champ Jose Aldo said that he has a good feeling that his next title defense will be against Manny Gamburyan.

According to the dominant Nova Uniao BJJ black belt fighter who trains with the likes of the Nogueira brothers, Anderson Silva and Junior Dos Santos, The fight hasn’t officially been inked, but he indicated that Gamburyan is the frontrunner for the next shot at his belt.

"I don’t really know. When we left Sacramento there were two names we had in mind, but I think maybe it will be Manny Gamburyan, so I can’t really say. We are here now, but I believe we will only know this for sure in some time, I think we will have to wait a bit longer."


At first I was like, "Seriously? Manny Gamburyan," but looking at the WEC’s featherweight roster, I can’t say there are a lot of other options for Jose at the moment, since "The Anvil" just threw a wrench in the promotion’s likely plan to have an Aldo vs. Mike Brown rematch by the end of summer.

Personally, I’d like to see them bring in a guy like Hatsu Hioki, or eventually Ivan Menjivar (if his comeback is successful) to round out the division, especially since Aldo is already planning a move up or down in weight classes in the not too distant future.

"It’s possible that I can to a lighter or a heavier division, but I sure want to do some belt defenses first, I want to build a solid career on the featherweight division. But, in the future, I may take a risk and change divisions."