Where’s The Smart Money?: Jose Aldo vs. Anthony Pettis

Super fights in the UFC are the things every MMA fans dreams are made of, two top level champions squaring off to decide who is truly the best of the best. Anderson Silva and GSP or Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez vs. Jon Jones, and GSP vs. just about anyone are all yet to come to fruition. This makes the recent media storm surrounding Anthony Pettis and Jose Aldo all the more exciting.

Originally slated to fight at UFC 163, Pettis would injure himself and lose his shot at Featherweight glory. Fast-forward to present day and ‘Showime’ is the boss at lightweight, Aldo is still clearing out 145 and both guys are willing to fight each other. Dana White said he has hammered out the dents in negotiations, and we are surely on the precipice of seeing this fight become a reality.

With all the talk of Aldo/Pettis comes a boatload of opinions about who would win that fight. This is expected, as with any huge bout, but I was personally surprised at how many fans are choosing Pettis to win that fight. So I looked a lot harder at the situation, and I have a few points I’d like to talk through regarding the potential super fight.

Firstly is the matter of Pettis’ injured knee, and this is probably the biggest factor in the fight; not size or reach or records. If Pettis is unable to withstand a full power leg kick from Aldo, the fight will be a hopeless one for ‘Showtime’. Aldo’s leg kicks are the most brutally powerful and fast in all of MMA, and taking those after months of therapy on a torn PCL or injured leg is going to be a tough task.

The posterior cruciate ligament is the soft tissue fibre that is essential for maintaining stability and keeps the knee from bending in the wrong direction. Physical therapy reports maintain that sportsmen can come back with relative ease from such a knock (Physical Therapy in Sport 13 (2012);196-208., but they don’t take in to account being relentlessly kicked for 25 minutes on the same spot.

Secondly, and really following in the footsteps of the injury, is where can Pettis win the fight? Will he outwrestle a guy that is bigger than him (muscle wise)? Aldo walks around at a higher weight than Pettis, and at 155 Aldo would be a tank. Aldo’s wrestling, in my opinion, is better than Pettis’, and his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is super slick.

Can he outbox Aldo for 25 minutes? I wouldn’t think so, so logically Pettis’ only route to the win is through kicks. The answer for Aldo is to ruin ‘Showtime’ with his low kicks, thus nullifying Pettis’ only real advantage in the fight. Factor in that Aldo’s cardio should be much improved without a savage weight cut and the Brazilian is surely a lock for this fight.

The torn PCL is not related to the first injury that saw Pettis sidelined after his KO win over Joe Lauzon at UFC 144 in 2012, which leads me to think that there would be problems in training for Aldo. How will Pettis mimic Aldo’s leg kicks in the gym without constantly aggravating the old injuries? The truth is that Pettis could get sidelined for a long time just by training for the fw champ, let alone actually fighting him.

The fight will not likely be until this summer, or maybe further in to 2014, so ‘Showtime’ will be a year removed from his last fight. Aldo was medically cleared to go back to the gym straight after his UFC 169 win against ‘The Bully’, so you’d think he is already hitting the bags for Pettis. The last point I’d make is in the power category.

A lot of people are saying that Pettis would TKO Aldo with body kicks, and that Aldo’s power is no longer there. I think that his recent cagey performances are due to the savage weight cuts that the Nova Uniao product goes through, and again this would not be the case at lightweight. Aldo would be able to let loose with his power as he did in the WEC when he was younger and handled the weight cuts better than today.

When I factored in all the info available, I came to the conclusion that my betting money would go on Aldo. Although it is only an opinion, and I know how people feel about them.

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