CURITIBA, Brazil – Jose Aldo is less salty about his loss to Conor McGregor now than in the months immediately following his UFC 194 title-fight defeat. However, he still has a grudge to settle with the man who took his UFC featherweight championship.

Aldo (25-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) had his lengthy 145-pound title reign and 10-year unbeaten streak snapped in December when McGregor (19-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) knocked him out cold in just 13 seconds. Aldo has been very vocal about booking a rematch, but first must get through Frankie Edgar (20-4-1 MMA, 14-4-1 UFC) in an interim title bout at UFC 200 in July.

Losing fights is a reality of MMA that no championship-level competitor has ever gone an entire career without experiencing. Aldo knew his time would come, he said, but just not against McGregor.

“I hadn’t lost in a long, long time and I knew it was going to happen someday, but not for that (expletive),” Aldo said at today’s UFC 198 fan Q&A. “It’s part of it. Now I’m just going to get that belt back. I think that belt is ours. Up until then I was the only featherweight champion with that belt. We’re going to get that back for sure.”

If he does take care business against Edgar for a second time after first defeating “The Answer” at UFC 156 in February 2013, Aldo said a rematch with McGregor is the only thing on his radar.

That might be out of his control, though, because after losing a welterweight fight to Nate Diaz at UFC 196 in March, many wonder if McGregor will ever actually return to featherweight to defend his belt.

Aldo hopes McGregor will come back, but only because he wants redemption. He personally felt the UFC should have granted him an immediate rematch after the shocking outcome at UFC 194, but they went a different direction. He said he doesn’t agree with that decision, but can respect it.

If Aldo has any chance of fighting McGregor again, though, he must defeat Edgar at UFC 200. Their first bout was competitive, but Aldo came out on top by unanimous decision. He thinks he needs a more dominant performance to get what he wants going forward.

“I don’t think it’s going to be like the first one,” Aldo said. “We’re both going to be different this time. I know when things get rough he’s going to try to do his game and then that’s where we’ll get him. I’m training very hard. I think we’ll learn a lot from defeats and losses and I sure did. I’m going to go there, run over him and it doesn’t matter what happens. We’re going to win this fight.

“Every fight is different. I know him, he knows me. No fight is easy, but just due to the fact I know his game, I know his strong suits. Hopefully it’s going to be easy and I’ll be able to get the win because I’m coming off a result that was less than positive so I can return and become champion again.”

Stopping Edgar in emphatic fashion, and inside the distance, would be a huge statement for the Brazilian, as no one has ever accomplished such a feat. That’s his goal, though, and once he’s completed, he said he’s going after McGregor.

“After this one we’re going to go after him even if it’s in the streets,” Aldo said. “If I defeat Frankie Edgar we’re going to be very close to the belt.”

For more on UFC 200, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.