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José Aldo is one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. Furthermore, he remains the greatest featherweight in MMA history. In the aftermath of his stunning 13-second knockout loss against Conor McGregor, Aldo was the recipient of an avalanche of disrespect from a majority of the casual fans that the Irishman brought into the sport.
Many dismissed Aldo's accomplishments in the sport, while others leapt onto a different bandwagon once McGregor abandoned the division in pursuit of UFC lightweight gold.
Once Max Holloway captured the promotion's featherweight championship from José Aldo and mounted 2 title defenses, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan was quick to discount the Brazilian's legacy by proclaiming Holloway the featherweight GOAT.
However, José Aldo is not merely the greatest featherweight in history, he is also an MMA GOAT regardless of weight classes. Having recently retired from MMA, 'Scarface' leaves behind a massive legacy that everyone will struggle to match.
In honor of his historic run in the UFC, this list details the 5 reasons why José Aldo is an MMA GOAT.
#5. José Aldo is the greatest anti-wrestler in MMA history
As a Brazilian, José Aldo has no formal background in wrestling. Yet, the Brazilian somehow built the greatest defensive wrestling system in MMA history.
José Aldo's MMA debut came in 2004, almost two decades ago. Typically, somebody who has been an active fighter for that long meets opponents who have tailored their fighting style and gameplan to beat them. However, Aldo's takedown defense remained impregnable across 39 fights in an 18-year career.
During his reign as the featherweight champion in the WEC and the UFC, José Aldo encountered a string of elite wrestlers and even a judoka. Urijah Faber, Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar and Ricardo Lamas all failed to outwrestle the Brazilian. Manny Gamburyan was unable to use his judo against José Aldo.
Even years afterward, with a mountain of fight tape on Aldo's defensive wrestling, Merab Dvalishvili failed on all 16 of his takedown attempts against 'Scarface'.
From a technical standpoint, Aldo displayed a fantastic sprawl. He widened his base and threw his hips back while snapping his upper-body weight onto the back of his opponent's neck.
However, he rarely needed it. Instead, when opponents shot in for takedowns, José Aldo immediately hooked his arm over one of his foe's arms.
If the takedown was a double-leg, the Brazilian turned it into a single-leg by overhooking his opponent's arm and turning sideways to feed his hip to his foe. At that point, Aldo freed his arm before shoving his opponent's head down to his ankle and hopping out of their grasp.
If the takedown was a single-leg, half of his work was already done for him. He retired with a takedown defense rate of 91%.
#4. Revolutionized low kicks
There is a reason José Aldo's low kicks landed with great success despite the evolution of MMA striking throughout his career.
The Brazilian's reputation as a devastating kicker was well-known. Back when he first faced Urijah Faber, Aldo brutalized the Team Alpha Male founder's legs with thunderous low kicks. Years later, no one had unearthed the means to stop his low kicks despite so much tape on it.
The UFC featherweight legend did two things to stop his opponents from checking his low kicks. First, Aldo ensured that he didn't telegraph his kicks like other prolific low kickers would.
Often-times, hard low kickers step into kicks, using the momentum of the step itself to generate significant power. Unfortunately, stepping in to low kick telegraphs the kick.
Fighters learned to predict low kicks by waiting for the step forward from their opponents whenever they were in kicking range.
Instead of stepping forward, Aldo turned his hips into low kicks, using the torque generated to produce power in his kicks. Without stepping forward, the Brazilian rendered his low kicks much harder to anticipate.
Lastly, José Aldo typically threw low kicks after boxing combinations to completely eliminate the possibility of having his kicks checked.
The logic is simple. Aldo was a powerful boxer, so his punches demanded respect. Whenever he'd throw combinations, he did so with the intention of backing up his foes.
Once his opponent retreated, Aldo threw low kicks to catch them as they're back-stepping because it's difficult and defensively risky to raise and turn one's leg to check a kick while stepping backwards. If Aldo immediately threw a punch over the top, he'd catch his opponent on one leg for an easy knockdown.
#3. José Aldo defied the MMA Meta
Having been active since 2004, José Aldo has seen the sport of mixed martial arts evolve with the times. At different points in its history, MMA has been engulfed in specific conventions that defined an era.
At present, calf kicks make up the current striking meta of MMA, just as wall-walking has become the current defensive wrestling meta. Regardless of the era he's existed in, Aldo has defied the conventions of the time to great success.
Despite the presence of calf kicks, Aldo was nearly impossible to calf kick. While countless fighters struggled to defend against calf kicks, the Brazilian's bout against Pedro Munhoz was a masterclass on how to neutralize the technique.
Standard low kicks are defended by raising one's leg and turning it towards an incoming kick in order to block the lower and thinner part of the kicking leg's shin with the upper and thicker part of the defending leg.
How Aldo defended himself against calf kicks varied. One of his methods involved simply retracting his heel to the back of his thigh so that his foe's calf kick would miss his leg entirely and simply swing through empty space, leaving them terribly out of position.
With only one foot on the ground, Aldo's opponent would be in prime position to be knocked down by a punch over the top.
Another approach the former champion used involved faking the jab. The calf kick evolved as a counter to the jab because a good jab entails a fighter to step forwards. Doing so extends the fighter's stance and overexposes the lead leg to low kicks.
So Aldo drew out calf kicks by faking the jab, retracting his leg and countering his foe with a punch over the top. This enabled José Aldo to remain a dedicated boxer despite everyone else's struggles to box effectively in the era of calf kicks. After missing a few calf kicks and getting countered, his opponents became timid and stopped kicking him altogether.
Similarly, when everyone was using wrestling to make strikers pay for squaring their hips, José Aldo implemented his legendary takedown defense to nullify everyone's wrestling, allowing him to throw punches with power.
#2. Aldo's success against multiple generations of the world's best fighters
Throughout MMA's history, countless great fighters have emerged to pen their careers into the pages of the sport's storybook. However, many great mixed martial artists hit a wall whenever they were forced to compete against up-and-coming fighters who had a modern and more evolved fighting style.
Skilled new fighters come into the sport and do well against the previous generation that they grew up watching and studying due to the wealth of footage on them.
Once these new fighters encounter opponents of their own generation, their performances grow less impressive. Not only does the new generation of fighters have footage on older generation fighters, but they're also typically larger and more athletic as sports science advances.
Then as time passes, fighters who were once new become the older generation who must contend with foes who are larger, more athletic and have considerable footage of them.
However, the greatest fighters of all time perform well against multiple generations of the world's best fighters. José Aldo is one such case. The former UFC champion defeated the greats of yesteryear like Urijah Faber as well as the best of his own generation like Chad Mendes and Franke Edgar.
While Aldo failed in his pursuit of the UFC bantamweight championship, he still managed to amass a win streak that included top fighters from a new generation like Marlon 'Chito' Vera, who is currently on a 4-fight win streak. Other new generation fighters like Pedro Munhoz, Rob Font and Renato Moicano are also on Aldo's list of victims.
#1. He has the most title defenses in UFC featherweight history
José Aldo is the most successful featherweight in UFC history. For the longest time, 'Scarface' was the only featherweight champion in the promotion's storybook. While he was eventually dethroned by Conor McGregor at UFC 194, his legacy cannot be overlooked. Aldo reigned over the featherweight division for 3 years, during which he recorded 7 consecutive title defenses.
Not only did his stretch as champion earn him a place among the UFC's top 5 most successful champions in terms of consecutive title defenses, but the Brazilian's list of felled challengers included a winning streak over elite competition.
When Aldo defeated Mark Hominick, his opponent was at the helm of a 5-fight win streak. Kenny Florian, another Aldo casualty, is widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters to have never captured UFC gold.
Frankie Edgar, who Aldo defeated twice, is a former UFC lightweight champion. Similarly, Chad Mendes was defeated twice by Aldo. The three-time title challenger Mendes possessed an undefeated record prior to his first bout against the Brazilian. Lastly, both Ricardo Lamas and Chan Sung Jung were on winning streaks of their own when they faced Aldo and got demolished.
No other UFC featherweight has defended their championship as many times as Aldo has, nor did they have to defeat challengers from multiple generations. While Alexander Volkanovski is currently sitting with 4 consecutive title defenses, his legacy still ranks behind 'Junior's.
