It took 16 years for Jose Aldo to go from being a kid who was so broke he couldn't pay his capoeira fees to the Jose Aldo who enters the biggest event in UFC history to defend his legacy.
And what a ride it's been.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Jose Aldo Junior wasn't much different from the other poor kids growing up in Manaus, Amazonas in the 1990s. Son of Jose Aldo and Rocilene Souza, he was a sports aficionado from an early age. But watching his father struggle to get money to even eat and support his family didn't give him many options.
"We came from a humble background, but with a lot of love, so we were able to overcome that," Aldo says of his childhood. "My father was a bricklayer, and my mother was a housewife. It was complicated, obviously, because of our humble origin, but thank God we were all focused. I loved to study, had a good head."
A life that wasn't easy from the beginning turned worse for Aldo, who watched his mother leave home.
"I was a young boy, I didn't really understand what was going on, but it's obviously hard for a kid to see his mother leave, see your parents splitting," he says. "But she always supported me. She taught me good things. Just like my father, who supported me a lot to become the fighter I am today."
LINK: The kid from the favela - MMA Fighting
