RIO DE JANEIRO -- Jose Aldo pulled out of UFC 189 headliner with a rib injury, and he’s finally back to training.

The UFC featherweight champion, who broke his rib a couple weeks before his bout with Conor McGregor on July 11, said during Thursday’s Q&A session in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that he has returned to training at Nova Uniao.

"My rib is fine, I returned to training now," Aldo said. "I’m just waiting for them to book the fight so we can fight on the same night as Werdum. I hope we’re there together."

Mendes replaced Aldo at UFC 189 and lost to McGregor via second-round TKO. "The Notorious" became the interim champion with the victory, but the Brazilian was not impressed.

"It was exactly what we already expected," he said. "If you book this fight today, we’ll beat him. The strategy was already set. We trained for him once and we saw that our strategy would work with his fight against Mendes. We have the most logical way to win and we try to improve every time more."

The UFC has yet to announce a new date for Aldo vs. Mendes, but the featherweight contest is expected to take place in December or January.