In the extended absence of Conor McGregor, who seems more interested in chasing Nate Diaz and other fights at 155 or 170 pounds than defending his featherweight crown, Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar will meet up to fight for the interim title at 145 pounds.
This is a rematch of a featherweight title fight that took place in February 2013. Aldo took a clear but competitive decision from Edgar in the former lightweight champion's first trip down to 145 pounds.
In the aftermath of that fight, Aldo defended his title three more times before eating a left hand from McGregor. It took him only 13 seconds to lose the title he had held for nearly five years.
Edgar, by contrast, hasn't lost since falling short against Aldo. The former lightweight champ has won five in a row, all of them in dominant fashion. He knocked out two-time title challenger Chad Mendes in December, took a decision from Urijah Faber, brutalized Cub Swanson, did terrible things to a shot BJ Penn and came out on top in a fun fight against the promising Charles Oliveira.
In McGregor's absence, this was the fight to make in the increasingly stacked featherweight division. The winner will be a worthy champion in his own right should the Irishman continue his gallivanting odyssey at lightweight and welterweight, and if he does return to 145 pounds, either fighter will give him a tough time.
Jose Aldo
Record: 25-2; 14 KOs, 2 Submissions, 9 Decisions
Height: 5'7"
Reach: 70"
As Aldo has aged from a terrifying youngster into a longtime champion, his once-dynamic game has become progressively less flashy. In place of double flying knees and suplexes, Aldo now relies heavily on a pinpoint jab, tight footwork and impeccable defense.
The former champion scores points while keeping a relatively slow pace and minimizing the damage he takes.
He's still capable of bursts of tremendous violence, but he rises to those occasions only when necessary. If his opponent can't force him to commit to serious offense, Aldo is happy to coast through the fight, stuffing takedowns and landing enough strikes to clearly win rounds without exposing himself to danger.
Efficiency is key to Aldo's game. He has had trouble with his cardio before, namely in his 2011 fight with Mark Hominick. While it hasn't been a serious issue since then, no opponent has succeeded in pushing a truly punishing pace against him. Mendes tried to do so when they fought in 2014, but couldn't sustain it for more than a few minutes at a time without taking so much damage that he was forced to back off.
That's the genius of Aldo's slow-burn approach. "If you want to make the champ work," said color commentator Brian Stann during that 2014 fight with Mendes, "this is how he works." Aldo has clobbered every opponent who's tried to push him so hard that the opponent has no choice but to back off and give Aldo space and time.
This is one of several reasons why the formula for beating Aldo isn't simply to work fast. Aldo's counters and willingness to exchange are one tool for controlling the pace, but he has a whole arsenal of options at his disposal.
The pinpoint jab and tight footwork are key to slowing the pace. Aldo throws his lead hand early and often, varying the speed, timing and rhythm in confusing ways. This serves to set his distance, keep his opponent at bay and disrupt his flow, preventing him from throwing real volume.
With the jab providing such a precise understanding of where his opponent is relative to him, Aldo doesn't have to move much, and his tight footwork allows for small adjustments. He constantly cuts angles and is rarely directly in front of his opponent—except on his terms.
Aldo is known for his crushing low kicks, and rightly so. He does tricky things to set them up, either throwing them in front of his opponent without telegraphing or hiding them behind his punches.
Those shots to the legs and a commitment to working the body with punches likewise helps to slow his opponent down. It's hard to push the pace after eating a succession of hard shots to the outside of the thigh and liver, especially after two or three rounds of that punishment.
As devastating as he is offensively, Aldo is even more technically sound on defense. He moves his head constantly and combines that layer of defense with parries and a tight guard. His command of distance gives him the option of sliding backward out of range or staying in place, and either way Aldo excels at responding with counters.
Given his choice, Aldo prefers to strike, and he has the best takedown defense in the history of MMA to keep him standing. The former champion times his opponent's shots beautifully, floating his hips as they enter and then sprawling. His head pressure and balance against single-leg takedowns is otherworldly. If planted on the mat, he never stops his momentum while hipping out and keeping pressure on his opponent's head.
Aldo's command of distance, angles and footwork make it difficult to line up a straight shot at his hips. The opponent is either too far away or not directly in front of him, and this means that it's a simple matter for him to stuff the takedown before it even begins.
While he rarely looks for takedowns of his own, he has an excellent command of trips, knee-taps and double-leg takedowns, and especially excels at ducking under his opponent's strikes to set them up.
From top position, Aldo is a monster. He has great posture and packs serious power in his ground strikes. The longtime black belt slices through the guards of even experienced grapplers like a hot knife through butter. Getting to the back is a particular specialty.
At this point, the real concerns about Aldo's game have to do with his age. While only 29, he has been a professional for a month shy of 12 years and has fought professionally 27 times. The knockout loss he suffered to McGregor last December was the first, and there's a real chance his iron chin has cracked. Moreover, aging has never done anything good for fighters whose cardio is already somewhat questionable.
One also has to wonder what will happen to Aldo's confidence. He always fought with an understated swagger, but McGregor iced him in just 13 seconds. Will he have the same willingness to exchange after such a devastating loss? Will he hesitate to pull the trigger? Will his timing be off? These are all questions that need to be answered.
Frankie Edgar
Record: 20-4-1; 6 KOs, 4 Submissions, 10 Decisions
Height: 5'6"
Reach: 68"
Edgar is a different fighter than he was in 2013, and almost entirely for the better. It's rare for a competitor nearing the end of his prime years to make substantial improvements to his game. Edgar is the exception.
Those changes mostly revolve around Edgar's much more efficient approach. The New Jersey native has always been known for his pace and command of angles, but in the past, much of his constant movement has seemed aimless and rote, rather than directed toward an identifiable purpose.
That's no longer the case. Edgar moves less than he used to in absolute terms and does less circling for the sake of circling, but his footwork is tighter than ever. He pivots smoothly, changes directions and gets in and out, all without expending as much energy as he used to. It's easier to keep a rapid pace because he's closer to his opponent without being any easier to hit.
The basics of Edgar's game haven't changed. He prefers to box, sliding into the pocket behind a jab and then dropping between two and four punches. Cracking low kicks often follow his punching combinations. In either case, Edgar exits on a different angle than the one on which he entered range, which takes his head off the center line and keeps him safe in the event his opponent tries to counter.
While he carries enough power to keep his opponents honest, power punching isn't Edgar's wheelhouse, and he never sells out trying to finish with a single shot. Instead, Edgar focuses on volume and confusing combinations, moving between the head, body and legs within a single sequence.
The former lightweight champion creates a steady stream of offense. Everything he throws comes in combinations, so even if he misses a few shots, one will still probably land. The targeting of the body and legs wears his opponent down, and he forces the opposition to respond to his movement by moving in turn. This means a great deal of trying and failing to keep up while swinging and missing.
All of this is exhausting, and that's just in the striking.
The angles that help Edgar get in and out to land combinations without getting hit in turn also open up opportunities for takedowns. He constantly changes levels and feints at the opponent's legs, while his flashing combinations draw attention away from the threat of the wrestling shot.
When Edgar pivots to create an angle and then steps in while flashing a double jab, for example, the opponent doesn't know whether to expect a right hand, a level change and a double-leg takedown, or a knee-tap takedown, which looks exactly like the right hand until Edgar grabs the leg and pulls the opponent to the mat.
Over the course of the fight, Edgar will show his opponent all three of those options, and that's just one example of many possible sequences.
Everything about Edgar's game is designed to frustrate and confuse his opponent. It's both mentally and physically exhausting to respond to all of his feints, fakes and cues, to sift the misleading from the real.
Edgar's second major improvement in recent years is his top game. Early in his career, Edgar used his takedowns the way a muay thai fighter uses sweeps and throws in the clinch: to confuse his opponent and break his rhythm, creating more opportunities to land strikes.
Now, however, Edgar can not only hold his opponent down, he can do serious damage from top position. He passes smoothly to half-guard and has excellent posture, which allows him to generate surprising power in his ground strikes. Submissions aren't Edgar's strongest suit, but he's good at getting to the back and finishing.
There are few weaknesses to Edgar's game. He's an excellent defensive wrestler and has yet to concede a takedown at 145 pounds, and he's no easier to hit now than he ever has been.
Edgar is probably slower than he used to be, and his greater efficiency may also point to a slightly more shallow gas tank, but no opponent has succeeded in exploiting those weaknesses if they do indeed exist.
Betting Odds
Edgar -115 (bet $115 to win $100); Aldo -105 (bet $105 to win $100)
Prediction
In their first meeting, Aldo's tight footwork, counters and low kicks won him the fight. Edgar struggled throughout to impose his preferred pace and constantly found himself just a few inches too far away to land his shots.
Aldo was simply never in front of Edgar long enough for the former lightweight champion to play his mobile game, and he struggled to impose his takedowns. The Brazilian made Edgar pay with counters every time he tried to close the distance, and did a particularly good job of drawing the American into backstepping right hands and left hooks.
Since their first meeting, popular memory of the event has made the fight seem closer than it actually was. The American was competitive throughout and hung tough despite eating a ton of clean shots, but never came close to piling up real damage on Aldo or outscoring him for more than a round.
Neither fighter is the same as he was in 2013, though. Aldo has suffered a myriad of injuries since then and saw his long reign come to a shocking end, while Edgar is now 34 and a bit less spry than he was at UFC 156. The American has made marked improvements, though, particularly to his top game and the efficiency of his movement on the feet.
Will that be enough to lead to a different result the second time around? The oddsmakers seem to think so, pegging Edgar as a slight favorite.
It's unclear, however, how the basic dynamic of the matchup has changed.
Aldo hasn't shown any cracks in his takedown defense, removing one of Edgar's best weapons and rendering the improvements to his top game largely irrelevant. This will still be a striking matchup, and while Edgar is a bit more efficient and perhaps a bit more powerful, he hasn't upped the volume to the point where he's certain to outscore Aldo.
One 13-second knockout at the hands of a monstrous puncher doesn't mean Aldo has forgotten how to strike, either, nor that Edgar can easily crack his chin.
It's unlikely Edgar will make the same mistakes he did in the first fight, which should make this closer. Still, Aldo's bag of tricks runs deep, and he'll need all of it in a back-and-forth barnburner. The former featherweight champion takes a tight 48-47 decision.
Betting odds via Odds Shark.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
