UFC 237: Namajunas vs. Andrade - Predictions and Picks

#3 Jose Aldo vs. Alexander Volkanovski

Jose Aldo looked back to his best in his win over Renato Moicano

Like the Silva/Cannonier fight, this one is all about a Brazilian legend facing a hot up-and-comer, except unlike Silva/Cannonier, Jose Aldo isn’t quite past his prime just yet, as we saw when he destroyed another up-and-comer in Renato Moicano in the UFC’s last Brazilian show in February.

Sure, he’s clearly not in Max Holloway’s league at this point, but then who really is? There’s probably an argument to be made in fact that Aldo remains the second-best Featherweight in the world.

Volkanovski is out to prove that idea wrong. The Aussie has been in the UFC now since 2016, and he’s put together a record of 6-0 in the Octagon to go along with his overall record of 19-1.

Early in his career it looked like he was a ground-and-pound based fighter – a worrying thought given he wasn’t coming from a legitimate wrestling background – but since then he’s developed a remarkably good kickboxing game.

Most recently, Volkanovski tore former title contender Chad Mendes up on the feet, pulling through some early issues to beat up Mendes with combinations to the head and body before finishing him off late in the second round.

It was a huge win for ‘Alexander the Great’ and set him up for this huge opportunity – a win over Aldo would almost certainly put him in line for a title fight against Holloway next time around.

Can he really pull it off, though? I’m not too sure. It’s not exactly like Aldo has truly declined over the past couple of years, after all. Holloway made him look bad but there’s no shame in that, and while he started relatively slowly against both Jeremy Stephens and in his recent fight with Moicano, once he found his range he absolutely destroyed them both with vintage combinations, using his winging left hook and some brutal shots to the body.

I could see a super-fast starter having some success against this iteration of Aldo; the fighter who once had the deadliest leg kicks in MMA seems to be gone now and while the boxing-focused version of Aldo is still incredibly dangerous, starting slowly could well be an issue for him and so if Volkanovski could come out and blitz him in the opening moments, then he could well pull this out.

The problem though is that Volkanovski isn’t a quick starter himself, as he takes time to settle into a rhythm and arguably lost the first round of the Mendes fight – and then got hurt early in the second – before finding his range to blast the American later in that round.

And realistically, if Aldo opens up on him like he did to Moicano, I’m not really sure if he can survive the barrage.

I’m predicting a slow-burner here; I think both men will come out pretty slowly in a feeling-out process and Volkanovski might well edge the early exchanges, but in the end I think Aldo’s the fighter more likely to find a rhythm, and once he does that then he’ll light up the Brazilian crowd with another violent finish.

The Pick: Aldo via second round TKO