The first time Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes met, the former landed a knee that sent the latter into la la land. What happened next created one of the most iconic scenes in the UFC’s history. Aldo spilled out into the crowd at the HSBC Arena in Rio de…
The first time Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes met, the former landed a knee that sent the latter into la la land. What happened next created one of the most iconic scenes in the UFC’s history. Aldo spilled out into the crowd at the HSBC Arena in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil.
The shot of a victorious Aldo among a sea of adoring Brazilian fans is unforgettable.
On Saturday, the two men will have their long-awaited rematch. The arena has changed, but the bout will still be in Rio deJaneiro, where Aldo is so beloved. Can Mendes overcome the huge home-field advantage and one of the sport’s best fighters?
We can’t wait to find out.
The co-feature will see another Brazilian favorite, Glover Teixeira, battle fellow light heavyweight contender Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis. Both men are coming off losses in their last bout. Teixeira was beaten silly by Jon “Bones” Jones, and Davis was pounded by Anthony “Rumble” Johnson at UFC 172 in April.
The winner will be able to thrust himself back in line for a title shot in the near future.
Here’s a look at the viewing information, complete card and predictions for the event from the Maracanazinho Gymnasium. Just below the table is a closer look at the two featured fights.
Teixeira Will Punish Davis
Mr. Wonderful has an excellent base skill as a wrestler, but he has never developed much beyond his grappling prowess. Because of this, he’s in deep water any time he can’t take a fight to the ground. Per Fight Metric, Davis lands only 35 percent of his strikes.
Moreover, despite his muscular build, he doesn’t have consistent KO ability. That’s evidenced by the fact that just two of his wins have come in that fashion. The power may be there, but the technique and commitment to delivering hard shots is absent from Davis’ game.
Teixeira wins this fight simply because he’s the more complete fighter. He lands 42 percent of his strikes, and he defends 75 percent of the takedowns attempted against him, per Fight Metric. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt will thwart Davis’ attempts to take him down. Teixeira will pick him apart with hard punches en route to a decision win.
Aldo Will Win Tougher Rematch
Another spectacular KO win could happen for Aldo, but don’t bet on it. Mendes has likely been replaying the first fight over and over in his head for two years.
He’ll be cautiously aggressive against the champion—especially early in the fight.
Speed and sophisticated striking are Aldo’s best weapons, but he’s also an underrated grappler. He prefers to stand and fight, as does Mendes. Because both fighters are dynamic, explosive and seek to fight the same style, their fights will always be entertaining.
In this one, Mendes will have his moments in top control on Aldo. He’s built to pursue success in ground-and-pound. Mendes will look to wear the champion down, as it is believed Aldo is perhaps vulnerable late in fights.
It’s a good strategy, but Aldo has excellent escapability and he’s crafty. Ricardo Lamas had similar ideas and wasn’t able to solve Aldo. The champion will do the better striking work and earn a close unanimous decision to retain the title.
Bring on ConorMcGregor.
Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter. I dig boxing and MMA.
UFC 179 will see its 11-fight card become official on Friday afternoon when the fighters hit the scale.
Jose Aldo’s featherweight title defense against Chad Mendes headlines the action from Rio de Janeiro. This will be the second time these two have fa…
UFC 179 will see its 11-fight card become official on Friday afternoon when the fighters hit the scale.
Jose Aldo‘s featherweight title defense against Chad Mendes headlines the action from Rio deJaneiro. This will be the second time these two have faced off against one another. The last time was in 2012 when Aldo won by knockout over the American.
Glover Teixeira, the No. 4-ranked light heavyweight, takes on No. 6-ranked Phil Davis in the co-main event.
Bleacher Report will have full coverage of the weigh-in proceedings when they get underway. The first fighter is scheduled to hit the scale at 2 p.m. ET.
UFC 179 will set the stage for three fighters whose victories would speak volumes. On October 25, Chad Mendes will attempt to wrest away the featherweight title for a second time from the reigning champion, Jose Aldo. He suffered his only loss to the c…
UFC 179 will set the stage for three fighters whose victories would speak volumes. On October 25, Chad Mendes will attempt to wrest away the featherweight title for a second time from the reigning champion, Jose Aldo. He suffered his only loss to the champion at UFC 142, having been viciously knocked out at the end of the first round. Mendes seeks redemption but will have to weather the storm in Aldo’s home country of Brazil.
Phil Davis, on the other hand, will give great efforts to remain relevant among the light heavyweight division’s top echelon of fighters. His stock severely fell after dropping a one-sided decision to Anthony Johnson in his previous fight, and a loss to his opponent at UFC 179 would place him completely out of title contention status.
Lastly, BeneilDariush is making strides in the lightweight division and has his sights set on finishing his Brazilian counterpart, Diego Ferreira. If the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace in Dariush is victorious, he’ll more than likely face name lightweight opponents, such as Michael Johnson and Eddie Alvarez, in his next outing.
Don’t get me wrong, Jose Aldo has been a very good champion for the UFC.
Aldo, in fact, is the only featherweight titlist the Octagon has ever known. By the time the UFC absorbed the WEC at the end of 2010, he’d so firmly entrenched himself…
Don’t get me wrong, Jose Aldo has been a very good champion for the UFC.
Aldo, in fact, is the only featherweight titlist the Octagon has ever known. By the time the UFC absorbed the WEC at the end of 2010, he’d so firmly entrenched himself as the best 145-pounder in the world, executives merely “promoted” him to the rank of UFC champion without bothering to have him fight for it.
It was the right move. Today, he’s the fight company’s longest reigning champ. As he approaches a UFC 179 rematch with Chad Mendes on Saturday, he’s No. 2 on the organization’s official pound-for-pound rankings. His streak of successful UFC/WEC title defenses stands at eight and—perhaps most astounding of all—he’s the proud owner of 17 consecutive overall victories.
All impressive numbers from any vantage.
But “very good” has never been good enough for a guy with as much potential as Aldo.
There was a time back in his WEC days when he appeared poised to take his place among MMA’s all-time greats. His run through the UFC’s kid brother organization established him as one of the most exciting and terrifying fighters on the planet. He seemed like the perfect person to shepherd the featherweight division out of the company’s smaller blue cage and into the limelight.
With his fearsome (sometimes otherworldly) striking skills and perfectly scarred face, Aldo felt predestined to be a superstar on the order of Chuck Liddell, Georges St-Pierre or even Brock Lesnar.
Unfortunately, that guy never really showed up in the Octagon. During his UFC run, Aldo has seldom appeared vulnerable, but he’s also seldom appeared truly great.
He’s been hampered by an endless string of physical ailments, including yet another injury to his neck that caused the cancellation of UFC 176 in August. He’s survived a close call against Mark Hominick, but has otherwise breezed through fairly nondescript wins over the likes of Kenny Florian, Frankie Edgar and Ricardo Lamas.
In the WEC he was a human highlight reel, but his UFC appearances have been typified by technical but unmemorable brilliance. His leg kicks are splendid, his punches near flawless, but signature moments have been few and far between.
Even in bouts that appeared ripe for him to make a statement—like against Lamas at UFC 169—it occasionally appeared that Aldo was content to grind out lopsided, but run-of-the-mill decisions.
Meanwhile, even as he’s scuffled, a strange thing has happened around him. The featherweight division is suddenly as robust and interesting as it ever has been. Where once it seemed like the champion’s dominance would never be questioned, there is suddenly an intriguing gaggle of contenders nipping at his heels.
It starts this weekend with Mendes, who has been on an absolute tear since a somewhat controversial loss to Aldo in January 2012. The Team Alpha Male product had afforded himself fairly well throughout the first round at UFC 142, before Aldo employed a blatant cage grab to avoid being down, wheeled on Mendes and knocked him out with a knee to the jaw one second before the horn.
(Remember what we said about signature moments? That was one of Aldo’s best, but even it was marred by the previous rules violation.)
In the wake of the defeat, Mendes has put together five straight wins (four of them by stoppage), each one giving the impression his stand-up abilities have caught up with his Division I All-American wrestling skills.
If Aldo can defeat the much-improved Mendes—and maybe even do so in impressive fashion—it could set the stage for a very profitable and high-profile 2015. If the longtime champion can just stay healthy and reconnect with his inner knockout artist, he might even get the chance to prove he can still be a promotional dynamo.
A springtime rematch with Cub Swanson or Edgar could be in the offing. After that, a big ticket bout with ConorMcGregor will certainly be waiting and near the end of the 2015, perhaps Dennis Bermudez, too. Where before there had been talk that Aldo might move up to lightweight to face champion Anthony Pettis in a superfight, it suddenly seems like his best course of action is to stay home.
Despite the tribulations of the last few years, he’s still only 28 years old. Theoretically, he’s still in the heart of his athletic prime and the greatest challenges of his MMA career may be at hand.
In other words, the time to take the ball and run with it is now. The 145-pound class will be garnering a lot of eyeballs over the next 12 months or so. It would be sort of a shame if the man to lead the lighter weight classes into the promised land turned out to be McGregor, not Aldo.
No, it would be far better for the UFC’s last Brazilian champion to finally seize the brass ring that has seemed so tantalizingly close for much of his career. Fact is, he still has an outside shot at lofting himself into the stratus of the all-time greats. He can still make good on the promise of his early WEC days.
Will he ever be the superstar he once seemed destined to be?
Maybe not, but with a new crop of contenders suddenly reshaping the future of the featherweight division, he’s about to get his best chance yet.
The team of analysts for the UFC on Fox Sports 1 and Fox broadcasts has been providing the most in-depth coverage that mixed martial arts has seen in its 20 years of existence.
With a collection of seasoned fight veterans and a handful of well-versed h…
The team of analysts for the UFC on Fox Sports 1 and Fox broadcasts has been providing the most in-depth coverage that mixed martial arts has seen in its 20 years of existence.
With a collection of seasoned fight veterans and a handful of well-versed hosts at the helm, the people who work the pre– and post-fight shows for the UFC have consistently raised the bar.
The broadcast table for UFC on Fox Sports 1 has seen a revolving cast of characters over the past year but few have delivered on the level of Daniel Cormier. The two-time Olympic wrestler turned mixed martial artist has been on point every time he’s been tapped for analyst duties, and because of his valuable insight and solid on-screen presence, “D.C.” has been a regular on the pre– and post-fight scene.
In fact, the American Kickboxing Academy staple has done such an admirable job as an analyst he was recently announced as the new co-host of UFC Tonight, which airs on FS1 on Wednesdays. Furthermore, he’s managed to do all of this while tearing his way up the light heavyweight divisional ladder to become the No. 1 contender to Jon Jones’ divisional crown. That’s impressive by any measurable standard but there doesn’t appear to be many things in the MMA realm Cormier can’t do.
The Louisiana native took time out of his busy schedule to mix it up once again for this column and we talked his new position and the upcoming card for UFC 179.
Let’s get things started by talking about this new gig alongside Kenny Florian as the co-host of UFC Tonight. Congrats Mr. Cormier.
Thanks man. It’s a big deal and I love it.
You’ve done a great job behind the desk. You’re undefeated inside the cage. I’m starting to wonder if you ever fail at anything.
[Laughs] That’s not true. I’ve done it time and time again, but I’m lucky, man. I’m a very, very lucky guy.
To be clear, what I meant to say is that it is obvious you don’t like to fail. Is that what is driving you toward the light heavyweight championship?
Oh I hate losing. I hate it more than most people could ever imagine. But with everything that is going on, nothing means more to me than winning that championship belt. In due time. In due time I’m going to get that title.
That’s a perfect segue to the business we are here to talk about. There is a featherweight title on the line this weekend when longtime champion Jose Aldo rematches Chad Mendes at UFC 179. There are a few things I want to ask you and let’s start with Mendes‘ mentality.
The first time he went down there two years ago he ended up on a highlight reel as Aldo scored a crazy knockout in the closing seconds of the opening round. How do you believe he handles going back to Brazil to fight Aldo after he was finished definitively in their first meeting?
If I’m Chad Mendes I went back and said, “What was the gap between me and Jose Aldo?” How big of a gap is there between me and the champ because I know there is a gap between me and everyone else in the 145-pound division. He’s shown that. He’s shown that the rest of these guys can’t really go with him. He’s finished four of his last five fights with a few of them being top-10 guys. How big of a gap was there in the first fight?
Mendes has to replay that first fight and know that when he was taking him down—putting himself in his best position—Aldo grabbed the cage. By grabbing the cage it started a sequence that ended the fight. Honestly, it’s fascinating how that played out. Chad had his back, lifted him up to slam him to the ground, Jose grabs the fence and it starts a sequence where the fight is over five seconds later. That’s crazy, man. You just don’t see that too often.
Is that a compliment on Jose Aldo’s awareness where he knew the opportunity was coming? Or, does that reflect negatively on Mendes because he hesitated for a second and ended up getting popped? Such a little thing caused a crazy finish. As for the gap, if I’m Mendes I look at the entire round. He wasn’t getting outclassed by Aldo in that round and that’s what he needs to build off of. He was actually doing okay and had he secured that takedown, who is to say the judges don’t give him round one? That’s what I build off of. I say to myself it was 1-0 going into round two had there not been an unfortunate sequence that ended the fight.
Another interesting aspect of this fight is the amount of smack talk Aldo and Mendes have launched at one another during the lead up to this fight. While the champion has said his fair share, he’s also mentioned in multiple interviews that fighting is always business never personal. I recently interviewedMendes and he said it is personal because Aldo said some awful things about him and he plans to make him pay for those words. How important does their respective abilities to balance play into this fight?
When you go into a fight in a competitive situation emotions can’t drive you. If emotion carries one of these guys into the fight, whoever that is will lose. It takes too much energy to carry emotions and anger. That’s why street fights never last long. You watch a street fight and it only goes for 15 seconds because the guys are so mad. They are so mad they can’t control themselves. They can’t control their emotions or their breathing and you can’t allow those things to dictate you.
I believe this fight is personal to Mendes, but when that door closes he will compete in a manner a true sportsman should. He’ll compete in the name of sport and honor. If he doesn’t do that and lets emotion run him, he’ll be exhausted by the end of the first round. Then he will be in trouble.
Another big fight on the card for UFC 179 takes place in the light heavyweight division between Glover Teixeira and Phil Davis. Both are coming off losses and how crucial is this fight for both of these guys?
It’s definitely a big fight for both of them, but I think it may be a bigger fight for Phil Davis. If he can win impressively, then he will insert himself back into the title picture where Teixeira just fought for the title and has some work to do. One great performance over a guy who was just the No. 1 contender puts Phil right back where he wants to be.
While this is a big fight for Davis, do you think any of that scope has to do with his current standing in the division? He was a highly touted prospect who rose through the ranks, but he’s faced a few setbacks over the past two years that have served to take a chunk of his momentum away. Do you believe there is pressure on Davis to become the championship contender many believed he would be?
I don’t think there is any pressure in that sense for Phil. The most pressure you should feel should come from within yourself. It shouldn’t come from anything people say or believe; it should come from within yourself. If Phil has inside pressure, he will be fine, but if he starts to take on outside pressure, it won’t be a good thing because that type of pressure will smash you. That’s impossible to do in this sport. I don’t believe he has to live up to anyone’s expectation but his own. So, to answer your question I don’t think there is any added pressure.
As you very well know, winning streaks at the highest level of MMA are difficult to come by and Neil Magny is having an incredible year. The Ultimate Fighter alum has won all four of his showings thus far in 2014, and he’ll be going for history at UFC 179. If he defeats William Macario on Saturday, he’ll make history as the first fighter to win five bouts in a year, yet, his streak has pretty much run under the radar up to this point. What are your thoughts on the state of Magny‘s current run?
He has been relatively quiet and it’s easy to overlook a guy like that because he’s fought on some prelims and fought guys who people aren’t very familiar with. He is also really unassuming in the way he approaches his fights and I think he’s one of those guys who could maybe benefit from thumping his chest just a little bit and say, “Hey look at me. I’ve won four fights in a row. Pay attention. I’m over here working my tail off and I’ve fought five times this year. Look at me because I’m doing good.” He could benefit from thumping his chest just a bit.
Wrapping things up let’s talk about two fights that could turn out to be action-packed. First up we have Andre Fili vs. Felipe Arantes and then let’s discuss Carlos Diego Ferreira vs. BeneilDariush. What are your thoughts on these two scraps?
I think the Fili vs. Arantes fight is going to be sick. I’ve seen these guys fight multiple times and I think it is going to be good. Especially for Fili. This is a kid who comes of Team Alpha Male with Urijah Faber and he looked so great when he first came to the UFC he looked special. That said, he kind of ran into a buzz saw in Max Holloway in his second fight and lost. When you get young guys who are looking to rebuild themselves, and their ego is kind of driving them to put on a show, nothing but good fights can come out of that scenario.
Dariush and Ferreira is going to be a good fight. I think Beneil will be alright if he can get the fight to the ground. I think he’s a little better when he gets things on the ground and can be a bit more opportunistic. That’s going to be a good fight.
Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
As a recently disgraced UFC broadcaster might say, here we go.
After months of injury delays and one canceled pay-per-view—RIP UFC 176!—Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes will finally rematch on Saturday at UFC 179.
Much has transpired since their f…
As a recently disgraced UFC broadcaster might say, here we go.
After months of injury delays and one canceled pay-per-view—RIP UFC 176!—Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes will finally rematch on Saturday at UFC 179.
Much has transpired since their first semi-controversial meeting back in January of 2012. Mendes has embarked on a crazy K/TKO rampage while Aldo (seemingly always ailing from some injury) has fallen off the radar a bit.
Around them, the 145-pound division has suddenly grown more interesting than ever with the arrival of ConorMcGregor and the emergence of guys like Cub Swanson and Dennis Bermudez. Whoever wins this one will be set for some big fights and maybe some big paydays, too.
Unfortunately, UFC 179 falls off precipitously after the championship main event. The co-main pits Phil Davis against Glover Teixeira in a fight that shapes up as a must-win for both guys.
After that…yeah, it gets pretty bleak.
Nonetheless, MMA lead writers Chad Dundas (that’s me) and Jonathan Snowden have predictions. Bold ones. Do you have what it takes to come along for the ride?
The first time Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes met, the former landed a knee that sent the latter into la la land. What happened next created one of the most iconic scenes in the UFC’s history. Aldo spilled out into the crowd at the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 