34 year old Jose Aldo was triumphant in his fight against the Korean Zombie Chan Sung Jung on August 3, 2013 at the HSBC Arena in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. He was paid $240,000 for the fight and his net worth in 2013 is at $2 million. Known by the nickname “Junior”, José Aldo da Silva Oliveira Júnior fought his first professional MMA fight at the age of seventeen at EcoFight 1 on August 10, 2004. Since then he has won 24 fights and only 1 loss. 14 of which were by knockout. Aldo is ranked as the #1 featherweight in the world by Sherdog and was named the 2009 Fighter of the Year.
Today he is one of the most respected fighters in the UFC earning over $100,000 per fight. But his upbringings was anything but respectable. Jose Aldo was born and raised in favelas in Manaus, Brazil. The favelas are impoverished neighborhoods in the Urban areas of Brazil. There were days his coaches recall Jose showing up to training without eating for days. As a kid he displayed great skills in athleticism. He played soccer and baseball in the streets with equipment and used items he and his friends found in the trash. Jose was surrounded by violence as a kid and constantly taunted and beat up by older kids. He started to train capoeira to learn ways to defend himself better in brawls. He is also trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muy Thai.
In Brazil, he is well known for his fighting talent and for being an association football supporter of Clube de Regatas do Flamengo and English Premier League club Chelsea FC. His wife is Vivianne Aldo another muy thai fighter. He met her while training at a gym in Rio when he was 16 years old. He claims she initially thought he was a charity case and only befriended him because she felt sorry for him.
