Jose Aldo defends featherweight title at UFC 125

Can we call him the former WEC champion yet?

With the merge of the WEC organization being absolved into the UFC (finally), a lot of changes will be made. Perhaps the promotion’s most recognized, or rather most dominant fighters, Jose Aldo will defend his title for the first time inside the UFC in January.

Along with Dana White’s formal announcement during today’s teleconference with the mixed martial arts media outlets, he also gave notice that their now featherweight champion will defend his title on the big show at UFC 125 in Las Vegas.

Aldo, one of the WEC’s brightest stars went a perfect 8-0 within the promotion, capturing the 145-pound title with a TKO victory over Mike Brown and defending his title twice against Urijah Faber and most recently season five finalist of “The Ultimate Fighter” Manny Gamburyan, which resulted in a knockout victory for the champion.

Speculation has circled around Aldo’s next opponent, pointing to two of the top contenders in Josh Grispi and Mark Hominick.

Hominick, who is actually a UFC veteran who went 2-0 with the promotion with victories over Jorge Gurgel and Yves Edwards, has seen a resurgence in his career, currently riding a 4-fight win streak with three of those fights coming inside the WEC. Most recently, the Canadian striker scored a unanimous decision victory over former title challenger, Leonard Garcia at WEC 51 on September 30th.

Grispi, meanwhile, can most likely make the case for himself to be the most deserving of the two fighters to warrant the immediate title shot. Josh holds a victory over Hominick in the WEC, a first-round rear-naked choke victory at that. Since his inception into the almost-defunct promotion in 2008, “The Fluke” has gone a perfect 4-0, and holds victories over the likes of Jens Pulver, Micah Miller, and most recently L.C. Davis to add to anchor his impressive list of opponents. None of them made it out of the first round.

Josh is already scheduled to make his final WEC appearance when he meets Eric Koch at “WEC 52: Faber vs Mizugaki” on November 11th. The WEC will hold two more shows, the aforementioned November show and a final show in December, when Ben Henderson defends his title for the second time against lightweight spitfire Anthony Pettis at WEC 53. That event will be the last WEC event before the promotion is folded into the UFC.

UFC 125, which features a headliner of champion Frankie Edgar defending his title against Gray Maynard in the lightweight division, will benefit with the addition of Jose Aldo for the January 1. New Years banger in Las Vegas, Nev. An opponent will be announced in the coming days.

So, MMA peeps, what do you make of the news? Who do you think is more deserving of the coveted title shot against one of the sports pound-for-pound greats? Sound off in the comment section below.