José Aldo | Long Live The King of Rio

Ask anyone that saw Aldo burst onto the scene in the WEC about him and they’ll tell you he was an immediate glimpse into the future; a lightning quick bundle of offensive weaponry that seemed destined to rise to the top of the featherweight division.

While he’d had success in his native Brazil and abroad before touching down in the little blue cage, it was under the WEC banner that the masses first saw a legend taking shape.

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His debut win over Alexandre Franca Nogueira made it known straight away that he was someone to watch in the 145-pound weight class, and subsequent stoppage victories over Jonathan Brookins, Rolando Perez, and Chris Mickle served to turn up the volume on the growing buzz that surrounded the dynamic, ascending Brazilian. The brilliance and dominance of his WEC days came through best in what was supposed to be his toughest test to date: a title eliminator against fellow emerging threat Cub Swanson at WEC 41.

It’s fitting that Aldo’s time in the Octagon began at UFC 129, the biggest event in the promotion’s history to that point, as his talents were always deserving of being seen by the largest audience possible.

Though he slowed in the final round of his fight with Mark Hominick, giving the London, Ontario native a chance to rally and the partisan crowd in attendance at Rogers Centre in Toronto to attempt to will him to victory with raucous support, what often gets lost in the pageantry of the closing round is that Aldo thoroughly dominated the challenger to that point, battering him from pillar to post, leaving Hominick with a gargantuan hematoma on the left side of his forehead.

Reflecting on Aldo’s initial run atop the UFC featherweight division feels very different in the years ACMG — After Conor McGregor — but make no mistake about it: successfully defending his title against Kenny Florian, Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar, Chan Sung Jung, Ricardo Lamas, and Mendes again was, is, and always will be an absolute gauntlet on the level of some of the best championship runs in MMA history.

But McGregor changed things.

Not only did he bring out a different side of the usually low-key Aldo in the extended, globe-travelling build up to their eventual clash, which was postponed from the summer when the champion suffered a rib injury, but he made the Brazilian uncharacteristically aggressive once they did finally stand across from one another at UFC 194, and Aldo paid for it, dearly.

He was the man that Max Holloway had to beat to become the respected champion he became. He was the guy Alexander Volkanovski had to get by in order to earn a championship opportunity in the first place.

He was the entrance exam that Marlon Vera, Pedro Munhoz, and Rob Font couldn’t pass to become full-fledged contenders in the bantamweight ranks, and that Merab Dvalishvili successfully navigated on his way to the top of the division.

He was too big of a hurdle for Jonathan Martinez to clear in order to keep rising up the divisional ladder, even after a near two-year absence, and the biggest test in the careers of Mario Bautista and Aiemann Zahabi, even after a 20-year career and countless wars.

There should be a three-to-five-year waiting period when it comes to reflecting on the career of a departed legend, because things very seldom end in a manner befitting of their legacy.

But with a little time, a little distance, it’s easier to see the impact a competitor had on the landscape of their division, and Aldo was a seismic force in the featherweight division.

We talk so much about how McGregor impacted Aldo’s legacy, but “The Notorious” isn’t the superstar he is without his Brazilian counterpart. Holloway doesn’t become the beloved champion he is without venturing to Rio de Janeiro and defeating Aldo on his home turf.

Not only did his dominant reign shape the division, but his presence opposite those two men, those two champions, undeniably helped shape their legacies and the years that followed his time on the featherweight throne.

Aldo has already been inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in a tearful ceremony where the humble Brazilian ran in place before taking that little skip-step he does out to the podium, Rihanna cooing, as always, while he made his way out to an adoring crowd.