The Greatest MMA News Column 11.17.09: Brown vs. Aldo
Posted by Dan Plunkett on 11.17.2009
411's Dan Plunkett takes a look at Wednesday's WEC featherweight title fight between Mike Brown and Jose Aldo, GSP and Hardy possibly coaching TUF, UFC 106, and much more! Plus, what happened to UFC 108?
Brown vs. Aldo
The week of November 14 to November 21 is a busy week in MMA. Last Saturday we saw Randy Couture take home a decision victory over Brandon Vera. This Saturday, we'll see their (soon to be ex in Randy's case) wives battle it under a main event featuring top prospect Tyron Woodley. 24 hours later, Tito Ortiz looks to bring his record to 2-0 against Forrest Griffin in his comeback fight. Despite how many viewers or PPV buys those events get, those fights can't compare to the main event of WEC 44 on Wednesday.
Two-time Urijah Faber vanquisher Mike Brown will look to further build a legacy he laid the foundation for little more than a year ago. Brown's opponent, Jose Aldo, will be looking to add gold to his already stellar résumé, which include five consecutive TKO victories.
"He's really, really good for a young kid," said Brown of the 23-year-old Aldo. "I'm 12 years older than him, so I'm going to have to use my experience and my ‘old man strength' to take him out." The biggest advantages Brown seems to have in this match-up are his wrestling and strength. The onetime UFC lightweight is among the bigger featherweights in the WEC and his wrestling skills were good enough to win a high school state title and get him into Norwich University.
Win or lose on Wednesday, Jose Aldo will have a long time to perfect his skills, even though his actual time fighting in the cage may not last very long. "I'm so happy to get this shot at such a young age," said the Brazilian after learning of his title opportunity. "Mike Brown is a nice champion. His wrestling and boxing are really good, but his ground game is not the same. Like all of my other fights in WEC, I'm trying to finish this one as fast as I can and become world champion." If Aldo puts Mike Brown away, he will keep his perfect record of finishes in the WEC intact.
On June 7 of this year, Aldo celebrated his WEC debut six days late, but did it in style. That night, he took on Cub Swanson in an unofficial #1 contender fight. Here is the play by play of that fight: Bell rings. The fighters touch gloves. Aldo runs forward and jumps up. He lands one knee, then another. As Aldo's feet fall to the ground, Swanson crumbles to the canvas and covers up. One, two, (pause) three punches land before the referee halts the bout. Eight seconds. Fight over.
Now after an explosive, quick knockout win, Aldo is getting his title shot. This reminds me of another young fighter that got a title shot after a similarly quick knockout victory. In November of 2001, BJ Penn took on the highly regarded Caol Uno in a fight where the winner would be granted a title shot. "The Prodigy" hurt Uno seconds into the fight and finished him with an onslaught of right hands to the grounded Uno.
The Penn comparison isn't perfect though. Despite Aldo's age, Wednesday's main event will mark his seventeenth fight, while Penn took on Uno in only his third career fight. However, like when Penn took on champion Jens Pulver, there are a lot questions that will be answered about Jose when he takes on Mike Brown.
For instance, we haven't seen Aldo on the ground in the WEC. I know he is a black belt in BJJ and trains with submission wizard Wagnney Fabiano, but will he be able to submit Mike Brown, who has a good ground game himself? How will Aldo deal with the power in Brown's hands? Should the fight enter his later rounds, we will also see what his cardio is like. Can he keep up his relentless pace in rounds four and five?
One thing is for sure: Wednesday's collision of styles won't disappoint. When they fight standing, it will be Brown's powerful hands against the diverse attack of Aldo. Once the distance closes, Aldo's Muay Thai will look to outdo Brown's dirty boxing. On the ground, Brown will look to ground and pound from the top position whilst looking for a submission opening, while Aldo will be looking to either submit his foe or get back to his feet. I fully expect this fight to be just as good as or better than Brown vs. Faber 2.
What Happened to UFC 108? (Part 2)
Last week I touched on all the changes to UFC 108 and when I thought the scrapped fights would fall. Now there is yet another change to the event. Minotauro Nogueira, originally scheduled to fight Cain Velasquez, has pulled out of the event after coming down with a bad case of staph infection. Firstly, it's nice to see that he pulled out of the fight simply because I don't want to see him fight like he did against Frank Mir again. With Minotauro out as his opponent, the main event of what is traditionally the biggest event of the year is now Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva. That's right, Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva.
Make no mistake about it; Evans vs. Silva is not a main event caliber fight. Evans is the coach of The Ultimate Fighter this season and has come off much better than his nemesis Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, but he's coming off of a knockout loss to Lyoto Machida. Rashad is a main event fighter against the right opponent, but Thiago Silva is not the right opponent. Silva does only have one loss on his record, but he doesn't have the name value to main event a show at this point in his career. I'm also still not sold on his striking, I feel like he's a ‘knock out or be knocked out guy,' but he has more potential than that. Most notably, he has a very tight ground game.
All around, UFC 108 is a very good card. Junior dos Santos vs. Gabriel Gonzaga is a very interesting fight. If it makes it to the ground, we'll finally be able to see how good dos Santos' ground game is. Carlos Condit vs. Paul Daley should be a very good fight which I don't think will go to a decision. I'm still interested to see how Sean Sherk will rebound off of his loss to Frankie Edgar. Plus, Joe Lauzon vs. Sam Stout will be a very good fight. The only thing missing is a legitimate main event, which because of injuries and sickness, the UFC can't put together.
Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort Likely for UFC 109
"Anderson Silva will look to defend his middleweight title for a record breaking sixth time against knockout artist Vitor Belfort."
I expect the commercial leading into the event to sound something like that. Vitor has looked good in his past few fights, winning all of them by knockout. With that said, he's a big underdog coming into this fight. Anderson looked unworldly in his win over Forrest Griffin. It truly was, as Joe Rogan coined, "a ballet of violence."
This has the potential to be a very good fight, but I have my worries about it. Does anyone remember what happened the last time Anderson had respect for his opponent's hands? If you don't I'll take it upon myself to refresh your memory. It was 13 months ago that Anderson took on power puncher Patrick Cote. Silva, being the great fighter that he is, decided to toy with Cote, but not in the way he toyed with Griffin. I don't think Anderson believed Forrest could knock him out when they fought, but going into the Cote fight he knew he was up against a guy who has a reputation for possessing heavy hands. As you can imagine, this didn't make the fight very enjoyable.
I will keep my hopes up for Silva vs. Belfort, since I do think Vitor will bring the fight to Anderson. Though I still have the fear that Anderson will choose to play more of a defensive game, which may be good for him, but not for the viewing audience. Especially after nearly a million PPV buyers saw his performance against Griffin, Silva needs to do well to show some consistency.
GSP and Hardy Under Consideration to Coach TUF
Please no. If Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy end up as coaches for season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter, it will be a bad move. TUF coaching spots are usually reserved for two fighters who have a heated rivalry, an anticipated fight coming up, or both. This fight has none of those qualities.
Dan Hardy is a great character. He likes to talk trash before a fight and put on a show. With a 4-0 UFC record (with two of those coming by split-decisions that I think he lost), Hardy has proven himself to be a solid fighter as well. But he is nowhere near the level of Georges St. Pierre.
While Hardy's good stand-up game leaves the possibility of a knockout victory, that's really his only chance of victory. After the first Matt Serra fight, Georges has been hesitant to just stand with his opponent. He is very good at mixing in striking and takedowns. When his opponent is thinking one thing, Georges does the opposite. So while Georges is better than Hardy striking-wise, I think he'll take him to the ground and end it there.
Long story short: Hardy has very little chance of even being competitive in this fight. He's just not ready yet.
This is why it doesn't make sense to hold off a fight for six months when a) The outcome is a foregone conclusion and b) The UFC is struggling to put together good main events for all of their shows. Let's face it, with the exception of Jake Shields; Georges St. Pierre has beaten everyone there is to beat in the welterweight division. Not only that, he did so in a fashion where rematches simply are uninteresting and unnecessary.
I've written it many times; Georges St. Pierre needs to move up to middleweight to fight Anderson Silva. It's not like the situation when BJ Penn moved up to take on St. Pierre at UFC 94 at all. In that case, Penn had a legitimate contender (Kenny Florian) waiting for a title shot at the time he moved up in weight. The UFC welterweight division doesn't have a fighter that is legitimately ready to take on GSP. The closest I can think of is Josh Koscheck, but he'll need to put together a couple more wins.
Instead of St. Pierre and Hardy, why not have Tito Ortiz and Mark Coleman? Or Chuck Liddell on his comeback fight (you know he's coming back)? What about a WEC season? There are so many options that would bring higher ratings and better television than a St. Pierre and Hardy season.
UFC 106
UFC 106 is this weekend and just like UFC 108, this is a very good card without a main event to back it up. When Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin and Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin were announced as co-main events, I predicted 1.3 million buys. Now with Lesnar vs. Carwin scrapped and Ortiz vs. Griffin 2 moving into the main event slot, the event has taken a big hit.
I think the best way to go is to have one PPV a month. It shows in buyrates that shows that are the first event in about a month do better than a show that's two or three weeks after the last event. The exceptions to this would be UFC 93 & 99 as both were under hyped overseas shows that came in better than expected. I haven't figured out exactly why this happened as of yet. UFC 94 could also be considered an exception, but that shows success really came because of the hype around the fight. If people want to see a fight, they'll pay for it, which was the case with UFC 94. My question is could UFC 94 have done more buys if it was held on February 14?
With UFC 106 coming just a week after UFC 105, will the PPV buys come in lower than expected? Let's take a look at UFC 95 & 96, the earlier of which took place two weeks before UFC 96, which did 375,000 buys. The main event of UFC 96, Quinton Jackson vs. Keith Jardine, wasn't anticipated by many and was overlooked after the success of UFC 94, UFC 95 on free TV, and the upcoming return of Chuck Liddell at UFC 97. I think that 375,000 number was a good total for that event all things considered, but I still think it would have done better if it was held a month after UFC 105.
Both Tito and Forrest are good draws. Plus, they have a history and Tito knows how to build a fight (I expect to see more of that in the countdown show). It also doesn't hurt that this is Tito's first fight in more than a year and he's finally healthy after back surgery. I'll go on record with a prediction in the 475,000-500,000 range.
As for the fight, this comes down to Tito's wrestling and cardio. If Tito can get Forrest to the ground, keep him there, and not gas over the three rounds, he'll win the fight. Thing is, that's easier said than done. Simply, I'm not comfortable picking Tito in this fight because it's his first fight in a year and a half and I don't know where he's at.
The co-main event of the night is Josh Koscheck vs. Anthony Johnson. This is a great fight in which the outcome will depend on where Koscheck wants to fight. If he tries to stand with "Rumble," I think he'll be staring at the lights. Should he use his superior wrestling to take Johnson to the ground, I think he will win this fight.
NYBA makes his UFC return on Saturday!
That's it for this week. I didn't talk about the Minotoro vs. Cane fight because I go into that in tomorrow's fact or fiction, when I take on the great Adam Tool. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment, or email me here. See you next week and look out for the WEC 44 and UFC 106 roundtables!
