Jose Aldo hopes teammate Renan Barao moves up to featherweight following loss to T.J. Dillashaw

RIO DE JANEIRO -- UFC president Dana White believes former bantamweight champion Renan Barao "should probably move up" to 145 pounds following a second TKO loss to T.J. Dillashaw, and the biggest star of Barao’s team agrees.

Jose Aldo, who holds the UFC 145-pound championship, told the media at UFC 190 that Barao cuts too much weight to compete at 135 pounds, so moving up to his division could be a good idea.

"We have to see what’s best for Barao," Aldo said Saturday night at the HSBC Arena. "He suffers a lot to make weight. He’s kind of strong for the division. I hope me moves up, yes. I will root for him no matter what, no matter where he is, at 145 of 135. I hope he can fight well at featherweight, that he moves up well.

"He has a good head and will bounce back, at my weight or at bantamweight."

Barao has only lost to Dillashaw over his past 36 bouts, dropping to 8-2 under the UFC banner, and Aldo believes it proved to be a bad match-up for the fellow Nova Uniao fighter.

"For sure. There are things we see and simply don’t work," Aldo said. "This time Barao trained hard, we were confident he would do a completely different fight. He tried to fight the way he was training in the gym, but he couldn’t. T.J. was happy that night. He was able to impose his game."