On Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Jose Aldo (25-1; 7-0 UFC) and Conor McGregor (18-2; 6-0 UFC) will finally meet in the biggest fight of the year. The brash Irish challenger has been waiting for the only featherweight champion in UFC history since the matchup was first announced in January, and he’ll finally get his crack at UFC 194.
The most important fight of 2015 deserves a complete breakdown. This piece will take an in-depth look at all the ins and outs of both fighters’ arsenals, point to the most important factors in the matchup and make a prediction.
Let’s dive into the games of two of the most scintillating and talented fighters in the sport today.
Conor McGregor
Three things define McGregor’s game: power, pressure and pace. The southpaw’s hands remain the centerpiece of his approach, and he packs a tremendous amount of force in his preferred straight left, which he throws early and often.
That left straight is his bread and butter. Formerly a pure headhunter, McGregor now regularly throws it as a thudding shot to the body as well. He might throw it four or five times in a row, relying entirely on his speed, timing and feints to land the shot. He occasionally switches things up and throws the left as a hook or overhand if his opponent tries to maintain a tight double-forearms guard to protect against the straight.
McGregor takes beautiful angles and hits a gorgeous back-stepping straight left or uppercut when opponents try to pressure him. Unlike many southpaws, he’s not wedded to the idea of keeping his lead foot outside his opponent’s, and he baits a devastating straight left across the plane of his opponent’s body as they overcommit to the outside angle. That’s how he knocked out Ivan Buchinger.
The constant left round kick to the head and occasional jumping left knee McGregor utilizes increase the threat of that straight left. Why? If the opponent slips his head off the center line, he moves his head directly into the path of the left high kick, precisely as Dennis Siver does in this sequence.
If the opponent keeps his guard centered to block the jumping knee, he risks letting the left high kick or a left hook slip around his glove. This triple threat—left straight, left high kick and left jumping knee—is a potent combination.
The Irishman doesn’t use his lead hand all that much. He mostly probes with his outstretched right hand, and occasionally flashes a jab, but right hooks are rare. The right uppercut, however, is a staple of his game and often serves as a setup for the straight left or even a left high kick as he attacks.
In general, he has been defensively sound. Detractors will point to his fight with Chad Mendes as contrary evidence, and that wouldn’t be wrong, but it seems clear in comparison to his other fights that his ability to move laterally was seriously hobbled by the knee injury he suffered beforehand. In the past, he has moved his head consistently, checked kicks and used his length, angles and movement effectively to avoid shots.
He’s hittable as he throws, however, and opponents who are willing to exchange with him in the pocket have had success. Still, it’s hard to hit him with the same shot more than once, and he adjusts quickly with his own counters and defensive motions.
McGregor has mixed in an increasing amount of karate or taekwondo as he has evolved over the years, consistently tossing out front and spinning kicks to go along with his steady diet of punches. These kicks are not a haphazard, random addition to his game, however, but serve three distinct purposes.
First, spinning kicks serve to force the opponent back toward McGregor’s lethal left hand as they try to get outside his lead right foot and gain the dominant outside angle. The Irishman rarely throws shots with his right hand, and the spinning kicks serve the same purpose as a right hook would, but at a much longer range.
Second, those kicks serve to corral the opponent and cut off his potential escape angles. Circular movement would allow the opponent to escape McGregor‘s forward movement, and spinning kicks attack the space the opponent wants to move into. Third, the front kicks force the opponent to move straight backward.
McGregor is at heart a pressure fighter who does his best work with his opponent’s back to the fence, and those rangy kicks serve to limit the opponent’s opportunities to get away and into the open space at the center of the cage.
The combination of circular kicks and his clean, efficient and relentless pressure footwork makes it nearly impossible for opponents to stay out in the middle. The knee injury he suffered before the Mendes fight obviously hobbled him and forced him to rely much more on straight-line movement. In general, however, McGregor‘s pressure and lateral movement is clean, technical and economical.
He simply never lets up, and when the opponent inevitably backs up to the fence, McGregor really goes to work. His flurries are vicious and he picks his shots beautifully, going around, under and through his opponent’s guard. If they try to circle away, toward McGregor’s right hand, he excels at pivoting and throwing a clean left hand as they overcommit and escape.
The fence is part of what enables the third major facet of McGregor’s game, his pace. He is one of the most prolific strikers in the UFC, routinely throwing 15 or more strikes in a minute. In the final minute of the first round against Dennis Siver, McGregor threw 35, a relentless and unforgiving stream of shots that barely even had the Irishman breathing hard.
The ability to work at and maintain that pace is a weapon that McGregor uses to break his opponents. Not only does he hit hard; he throws shots in bunches, stays on his opponents and does not quit until the referee pulls him off.
Until he fought Mendes, McGregor‘s takedown defense had been outstanding. He has a good sprawl, nice head pressure and a strong limp-leg and excellent instincts for hipping out and scrambling if placed on the mat. Against the cage, he has consistently used vicious elbows as opponents try to take him down.
Against Mendes, however, he struggled with takedown chains and showed the limitations of his bottom game: If forced to his back, he has to scramble immediately or he risks getting stuck for an extended period. His coach, John Kavanagh, told The MMA Hour’s Ariel Helwani (via MMAFighting.com) the deficiency was due to the injury, which prevented McGregor from doing any live wrestling prior to the fight, but that doesn’t explain the tepid effort from his back.
He has a beautiful double-overhooks throw that he likes as a counter to his opponent’s body-lock and can hit strong blast doubles, singles, knee-taps and trips from the clinch as well. Timing is a real strong suit, and he finishes technically and authoritatively.
From top position, he has a nice passing game and a strong base. He has great posture on top, and the threat of his thunderous ground striking serves to open up his passes. As he straightens up, opponents react to the possibility of a strike and stop defending the pass. Submissions haven’t really been his game, but he has good instincts for moving to the back, and the skill set is there if he wants to use it.
It’s important to note just how intelligent McGregor is in the cage. His fight IQ is off the charts, he makes excellent decisions and he adjusts to what his opponent gives him over the course of the fight. It’s hard to hit him with the same shot twice, and if he sees an opening, he’s likely to exploit it. His killer instinct is outstanding: If he smells blood, the fight will probably be over soon.
Jose Aldo
What’s remarkable about Aldo’s game is how meat and potatoes it is. There’s nothing terribly flashy about what he does in the cage, and yet his explosiveness, power, timing and rock-solid fundamentals have made him one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport.
Efficiency and defense are Aldo’s greatest strengths. He never moves more than he has to or works harder than absolutely necessary, which can make him somewhat frustrating to watch against overmatched competition but preserves his limited gas tank for when it really matters. It’s exceptionally difficult to hit the champion cleanly, and most of his offense comes from his defensive movement.
That defense consists of multiple layers, and it’s difficult to penetrate. Even when standing directly in front of his opponent in the pocket, Aldo’s head is almost never on the center line. He constantly slips this way and that, rolls under punches and pulls it to the side as he throws both punches and kicks, which makes him difficult to counter.
He actively parries punches and kicks. Even if his head movement and parries fail, he almost always has a tight guard as a last resort to deflect the incoming shot. Even kicking his legs is difficult, as he checks regularly.
In addition to his active head movement, parries and blocks, Aldo uses his feet efficiently. He has some of the cleanest and tightest pivots in the sport, which allows him to step off to an angle after throwing or as his opponent rushes forward. Check out this GIF of Aldo in a light sparring session to get a sense of the depth and breadth of his defensive skill.
None of this means that Aldo can’t be hit (if you get in the water, you’re going to get wet), but it’s exceptionally difficult to do so repeatedly and without being hit more and harder in return.
Each of those defensive layers creates offensive opportunities. While he has never had the extreme aversion to leading the way Anderson Silva showed in the later stages of his career, Aldo does by far his best work as a counterpuncher. He has a full arsenal, including same-time counters in the pocket, half-beat shots off slips, parries or blocks and pull or back-stepping counters as his opponent pushes him back.
Aldo’s jab is one of the best in the sport, and it serves to set the distance, draw out the shots he’d like to counter and disrupt his opponent’s rhythm and timing. He throws it constantly, often doubling it or throwing it a half beat after finishing a combination or a kick to catch an unaware opponent.
In general, there’s nothing special about Aldo’s strike selection. The jab, left hook, straight right and right uppercut are his bread and butter, along with the right low kick and the occasional spinning kick or flying knee. He has a gift for picking the right shot at the right time, however, and he’s exceptionally accurate with all of them. Mixing in shots to the body is a specialty.
He never telegraphs and it’s hard to predict what he’ll lead with, while his feints are constant and confusing.
Aldo has become famous, and rightfully so, for his vicious low kicks. He has two basic variations. In the first, he throws them while standing in front of his opponent without pivoting on his lead foot or stepping forward, relying on his speed and natural power to land them cleanly. In the second, he throws them like a Dutch kickboxer, using punches to drive his opponent backward so he can step forward and offline.
The latter is better known in the context of his career and more important to his game as a whole. The liver shot to low kick is the best example, which he hit repeatedly against Mark Hominick. Almost every low kick against Ricardo Lamas had punches to cover it.
The power in Aldo’s low kicks is unbelievable. Kenny Florian, who fought the champion at UFC 136 four years ago, put it this way to Shaun Al-Shatti of MMA Fighting:
I didn’t get full feeling in my legs back for months. He was kicking the inside of my leg, which affected the nerves in my legs so much that it took about a full two months to really get feeling back. It actually [became a game]. I would swipe my hand on the inside of my leg to see if I could feel it, and I just couldn’t feel it. I literally could not feel my fingers rubbing against the skin of my leg because the nerves were dead.
Volume isn’t Aldo’s strong suit. He works fairly slowly when given a choice, as you might expect from a fighter who places a great deal of emphasis on defense and countering. If his opponent tries to push the pace, however, Aldo is happy to oblige. The more strikes thrown at Aldo, the more opportunities he has to counter.
Florian described that instinct to al-Shatti: “[T]he more you get nasty, the nastier he gets. He’s forced to come up with more tricks, because Jose is content to cruise and do just enough to win. He’s that talented. If you go into second gear, he’ll go in third.”
“If somebody is pushing him,” said Ricardo Lamas to al-Shatti, “we see he does push back. And when he turns that switch on, he’s one of the greats.”
Few opponents can keep up that pace against him for long. For every shot they land on Aldo, he hits them with two or three right back, and even those who intend to pressure and make him work tend to let the constant counters get in their head. It’s almost impossible not to when every shot you throw generates a painful response.
The best takedown defense in the history of MMA is what allows Aldo to utilize that venomous striking game. He has exceptional timing for floating his hips into shot takedowns and a quick sprawl. His balance and head pressure against single-legs is off the charts, and he excels at simply turning and effortlessly kicking out.
Aldo’s control of distance and consistent stepping off to angles makes it difficult to get a clean shot at his hips in the first place, so most shots against him are doomed before they even begin. Even when he is briefly planted on the mat, however, he never stops his momentum: He immediately hips out, pushes the opponent’s head and looks to get right back to his feet.
The same instincts that make him a great counterpuncher in the pocket also help him counter takedowns. The right uppercut comes consistently as his opponents change levels, and so do stepping or flying knees. As his opponents separate after failed attempts, Aldo sneaks in a hard punch or three to remind them what happens when they can’t get him down.
It’s impossible to overstate how good Aldo’s takedown defense has been over the years. He’s stuffed some of the best wrestlers in the sport with shocking ease, and has only spent time on his back when gassed.
What’s lost in the discussion of Aldo’s striking and even his takedown defense is what a good offensive wrestler he is. Every time he has faced an opponent who could be taken down without an excessive expenditure of energy—i.e. not Chad Mendes or Frankie Edgar, with Kenny Florian the lone exception—Aldo has effortlessly gotten his opponent to the mat.
The exceptional timing and distance Aldo shows on the feet also applies to his takedown game. He excels at hitting reactive shots: Note here how he jabs to draw out Chan Sung Jung’s counter, then ducks under to get the body-lock and hit the outside trip. Trips, knee-taps and doubles are his favored takedowns, and he finishes them all with authority and sterling technique.
Aldo is a monster from top position, as befits his Nova Uniao black belt in jiu-jitsu. He passes effortlessly, slicing through the guard of even experienced black belts with ease. His pressure and posture on top is outstanding, and he packs brutal power in his ground strikes when he decides to let loose.
Half guard is a specialty, as are his array of smooth moves to the back, where he maintains strong control and excels at flattening his opponent out. He consistently looks for arm triangles, but has yet to finish one.
Cardio has been a consistent question for Aldo since he gassed in the fifth round against Mark Hominick in 2011. It hasn’t really been an issue since then, despite the consistent questions posed by commentators during his fights. Frankie Edgar tried to push the pace, and Aldo likely won the fifth round in their fight. He was breathing hard but still fighting strong against Kenny Florian and Chad Mendes in their second meeting.
It’s a hard question to answer definitively, since it’s seemingly impossible to separate Aldo’s tendency to take his foot off the gas, as he did in the fifth round against Ricardo Lamas, from being genuinely tired.
Keys to the Matchup
The two major factors here are pace and where in the cage the fight takes place.
If McGregor has his way, he’ll be pushing Aldo back toward the fence and working fast, throwing 15 or 20 strikes per minute.
If Aldo wins those battles, the two men will be out in the middle of the cage, and he’ll be throwing eight or 10 strikes per minute.
It seems like a foregone conclusion that McGregor will pressure and try to keep this standing. That’s been his standard mode for years now, and only against Marcus Brimage did he spend any real amount of time working off his back foot. It seems unlikely that takedowns will be a major part of his game plan, particularly against a defensive wrestler of Aldo’s caliber.
Aldo has a better chance than any of his intervening opponents of making McGregor move backward, but in the balance it seems likely that the Irishman will spend more of his time pressing forward.
The question is how Aldo responds to that pressure. He might try to stick and move on the outside, but that’s never really been his game. Moreover, he risks getting stuck on the end of the longer, taller McGregor‘s straight left and rangy kicks. That height and reach advantage is made even larger by the fact that the Irishman is a southpaw, so this will be an open-guard matchup.
It seems more likely that Aldo will want to fight McGregor in the pocket, which would at least partially negate his reach disadvantage. That means the champion will have to stand his ground when McGregor moves forward, trusting his head movement and defensive skill to avoid the first shot and come back with counter combinations.
That’s where McGregor is hittable, and it’s where the skill gap in terms of combination striking shows up most clearly in Aldo’s advantage. The pocket is also the range where Aldo will have the best chance of finding clever ways to land his brutal low kicks: He can’t just throw them without the Irishman checking or countering them, so he’ll need to cover them with punches and use his feet to avoid the return fire.
That’s also the best range for him to work reactive takedowns as McGregor rushes in. Aldo would be foolish not to try to take the Irishman to the mat, particularly after seeing the success Mendes had in working from top position.
If Aldo wants to control the pace and conserve his gas tank against an opponent who wants to work much faster, he’ll need to effectively shorten the fight by spending several minutes of each round working from top position. If he does that, he might not finish McGregor with strikes or submit him, but he will stack up points and shorten the exchanges on the feet.
If Aldo’s pride gets the better of him and he decides to exclusively strike with the Irishman, it’s hard to see how Aldo can keep up with him over the five-round distance. McGregor knows the Brazilian wants to work more slowly, and he has committed ever more fully to working the body and legs to wear his opponents down.
Despite McGregor‘s bluster and statement to Gareth Davies that he’ll finish Aldo inside a round, it’s unlikely that he’s banking on that outcome. The Irishman’s power can end the fight at any time, but his process is attritive and scores points even without the finish.
Aldo too wears his opponents down with low kicks and body shots, and he’ll have to do that to slow the quick-paced McGregor as the fight gets into the later rounds.
Betting Odds
McGregor -130, Aldo +110
Prediction
The outcome depends on whether McGregor can force Aldo to move backwards, whether Aldo can force McGregor to fight at his pace and whether the Brazilian is willing and able to complete takedowns. If this is a pure striking matchup, it’s McGregor‘s fight to lose as he buries his opponent in a mountain of diverse and potent offense, but it’s hard to imagine that Aldo won’t use all the tools available to him.
In that scenario, the fight favors the champion. Although he’ll eat his fair share of shots from the potent Irishman, his diversity of skills in every phase, speed, defense and ability to put his shots together in combination should be the difference.
It seems unwise to predict that either Aldo or McGregor will end up staring at the lights. Both are exceptionally durable and take a great punch, so a decision is the most likely outcome. In a five-round fight, both men will be forced to dig deep into their bag of tricks, and Aldo’s bag goes just a bit deeper with his takedowns and top game.
The pick is Aldo by 48-47 decision in the fight of the year.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Reporter and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter.
Betting odds via Odds Shark.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com