Anthony Pettis: 'Aldo's a tougher fight' than Benson Henderson

Saturday night's news that Anthony Pettis wanted to fight Jose Aldo was so nutty that Dana White nearly didn't reveal it.

When asked at the post-event news conference for UFC 156 what might be next for Aldo, who had just gotten past former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar in the main event, White said he got an interesting request minutes prior.

And after a brief tease, he finally said Pettis had been in touch moments after the fight and wanted to drop from 155 to 145 to challenge the featherweight champion.

It was a scenario that was pretty far off the radar screen – and if a potential fight between Aldo (22-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) and Pettis (16-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) had been talked about, it was usually in the context of Aldo cleaning out 145 and moving up to lightweight, which he has talked about.

Perhaps the only one who saw the sudden callout coming was Pettis himself. The timing of it was intriguing, to say the least. Just a week before Aldo defended his belt for the sixth straight time with the win over Edgar, Pettis took out Donald Cerrone at UFC on FOX 6. After the fight, White said Pettis would be next in line for the lightweight title after the April 20 title fight between champion Benson Henderson (18-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) and Gilbert Melendez (21-2 MMA, 11-1 SF, 0-0 UFC).

So why move down? On the same card as his win over Cerrone, previously anointed top featherweight contender Erik Koch, a Pettis teammate, was taken out by Ricardo Lamas. A Koch win likely would have gotten him a title shot considering he had one before and lost it with an injury, paving the way for Edgar.

"For me, it's been something I've been thinking about for a while," Pettis on Tuesday told "UFC Tonight" on FUEL TV. "I can make the weight easily. The reason I haven't done it before is Erik Koch – a teammate of mine who was right up there for a title shot. I didn't want to cross paths with him, so I pushed that back a little bit. But after being at the fights (at UFC 156), I thought it was the right idea to call out Aldo. He's at the top of the division. For me, it's just wanting to fight the best."

Pettis already holds a win over Henderson. He won a close unanimous decision at WEC 53 to win that promotion's final lightweight title before moving to the UFC.

If Henderson gets past Melendez in April, it was presumed the rematch would be on with him and Pettis. Instead, Pettis will fight for featherweight gold on Aug. 3.

And for him, he believes he now has a stronger opponent than if he would've been fighting Henderson or Melendez.

"To me, Aldo's a tougher fight," Pettis said. "That's why I asked for it. He's one of those guys going through his opponents like crazy. He just beat the last 155-pound champ. I think Aldo's the tougher challenge for me. I beat Ben Henderson once, and I think I'm going to be doing it again soon. But right now, I think Aldo's the guy that's on the radar."

Pettis said he was unsure what he would do after his first fight at featherweight. It can be reasonably assumed that the UFC wouldn't be in favor of him winning the belt at 145 and then immediately wanting to go back to 155 to look for a title there.

He said he'll deal with that if and when the time comes – but his ultimate goal is the belt at lightweight. Featherweight, it seems, is just a challenge to have while waiting.

"I'm not sure yet (what I'd do)," he said. "I've got to cross those bridges when I get there, but my goal is to become the 155-pound champ."

"Superfight" has been the en vogue term in MMA. Fans have been clamoring for superfights between welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and middleweight champ Anderson Silva, Silva and light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, Jones and anyone at heavyweight. And with Edgar dropping from lightweight for an immediate shot at the featherweight title, and middleweight Chael Sonnen moving up to light heavyweight for an immediate shot at Jones, it seems changing weight classes to go after champions now is commonplace.

But for Pettis, he said it's more about the challenge of the fight than it is necessarily about winning a title – though that certainly would be nice.

"The biggest thing is where he's good at – he's good at what I'm good at," Pettis said. "He likes to stand and trade and bang and I feel like I'm a little more well-rounded and I can offer him a big challenge.

"... This is one of those fights the fans want to see. I'm excited to be part of it. Injuries do happen, but I think this is one of those fights everyone wants to see. August is a long time away, so as long as we train smart, it'll happen."