Conor McGregor v Jose Aldo – A beginner’s guide

Not everybody's a hardcore fan.

And for those who are just beginning to follow mixed martial arts, in-depth analyses of fights are pretty useless because a lot of terms are relatively niche. Even if you've never seen an MMA bout before, UFC 194 is the perfect event into which you can dip your toe. The rivalry between Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo has been so prominent that it's broken into the mainstream and most people are well aware of the fact that a brash Irishman is set to go head-to-head with a dominant Brazilian champion. But here are the basics of how the fight breaks down. 1 Southpaw v Orthodox The first aspect of the fight that you'll notice when the bell rings is that Jose Aldo is going to come out in the orthodox stance, i.e. with his left foot forward, while Conor McGregor should come out in his southpaw stance, i.e. with his right foot forward. This means that Aldo's jab and lead kick will be coming from the left hand side of his body while his power punches and heavier kicks will be coming from his right and vice versa with McGregor. 2. McGregor's stance switching Conor McGregor likes to alternate between southpaw and orthodox throughout his fights as it sets up strikes from more unpredictable angles. He doesn't do it often and he doesn't remain in orthodox for long but you will see him switch his feet at some point just to assess any openings that are visible. 3. Leg kicks An awful lot has been made of leg kicks in the build-up to this long-awaited title unification bout because Conor McGregor relies so much on bouncing around and staying light on his feet while Jose Aldo is one of the best leg kick practitioners in all of MMA. Aldo brutally punished Urijah Faber's legs when they fought in the WEC but one thing worth noting is that the Brazilian's leg kicks are often more effective against fellow orthodox fighters as, most of the time, he throws right kicks to the left thigh of his opponents which is called an outside leg kick against an orthodox fighter because, you guessed it, it lands to the outside of the leg. But McGregor's left leg will be further back and Aldo doesn't really tend to throw leg kicks to the inside of his opponent's lead leg so this technique may not play as much of a factor against McGregor as it would if the Irishman was an orthodox striker. Aldo would ideally have liked this target in front of him so that he could slam his shin into the meaty part of McGregor's left thigh. But McGregor is a southpaw, his lead leg will be on the opposite side and Aldo doesn't like throwing leg kicks over long distances. He much prefers throwing short, snapping kicks which he won't be able to do as often against this target. This is not to say that Jose Aldo has never thrown a kick to the lead leg of a southpaw fighter, just ask Kenny Florian. It's just that, in the past, Aldo's landed this technique with better success against orthodox fighters. 4. Centre of the octagon The opening 20 seconds of this contest will be fascinating as both fighters have typically preferred to keep the centre of the octagon. Only one can control the centre and we think McGregor will do so first as he will probably want to lead this bout while Aldo has become a little more tentative from the outset in recent fights. Here is how the last five bouts of each fighter got underway and, as you can see, McGregor ran to the centre of the mat on all occasions. Aldo, meanwhile, will take the centre if his opponents allow it but he will not force the issue and is quite happy to share the centre if that's the way it plays out. 5. Takedowns We haven't seen much of it in the octagon because Aldo is such a vicious Muay Thai artist but the long-time champion actually owns a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) black belt and is a much better grappler than his pair of submission wins would suggest. The fact that McGregor's two defeats have come by way of submission could prompt Aldo to take the fight to the mat and Chad Mendes' success in doing so in July may push that gameplan forward even more. Aldo doesn't shoot often but we'd be shocked if he doesn't jump at the chance to wrap McGregor up and drag him to the mat if he finds himself losing the stand-up battle. 6. Reach advantage One massive physical edge that McGregor enjoys over his opponent is a four-inch reach advantage. McGregor isn't just a physically larger man than Aldo but he actually makes himself appear even bigger as he is very efficient at fighting long. Long fighters, like McGregor, want to keep opponents on the outside, on the end of their punches, and McGregor has been very effective in putting his opponent at the desired range. He will use jabs and straight lefts to keep Aldo outside of close range where he is most dangerous. Aldo, meanwhile, will want to get in and quickly get out of his attacks on the Irishman but he has a hell of a distance to travel if he is to avoid being countered. 7. Body shots Both McGregor and Aldo tend to invest in body strikes early on so as to slow down the output of their opponents later in the fight. McGregor's favourite method of doing so is by mixing up straight lefts and front kicks to the solar plexus which he used to tremendous effect against Chad Mendes in July. Aldo, because he doesn't have the same length in his arms or legs as McGregor, tends to use different techniques such as ripping hooks to the body and roundhouse kicks to the midsection. 8. Thai style v Karate style Both fighters undeniably use Taekwondo kicks but the style with which they employ them can often look massively different. The difference between the Thai style of striking and the more traditional, Karate style of striking is that the former uses much more power but is also telegraphed. Aldo comes from a Thai striking background which means that he plants his lead (left) foot on the mat and explosively rotates his hips and connects with his right leg. It's a great technique and is devastating when it lands but the trade-off is that opponents can read it more easily and therefore counter or block. McGregor uses the same techniques as Aldo but he utilises a style more akin to Karate insofar as he doesn't telegraph the kicks as much. He throws straight from the hip, often not planting his standing foot which means that the kicks don't quite have the power of Aldo's but that they are quicker and more difficult to see coming. 9. Aldo's ground and pound Ground and pound, in MMA, is the term given to strikes on the ground from a superior position and Jose Aldo is one of the best in the business at generating power down there. If, and it's a big if, Aldo can take McGregor down then The Notorious could be in trouble as Aldo is relentless on the mat in pursuit of the TKO. He likes to control his opponent's posture by holding down his hips which is where the most explosive escapes originate from. By tying up a fighter's hips with either an arm or by staying heavy on his own hips, he limits fighters' ability to break free. 10. McGregor's left hand While ground and pound is Aldo's most lethal weapon, McGregor's is undeniably his cement block of a left hand. The way that he sets it up and maximises the distance by leaning into it leaves very little chance for his opponent to get out of the way. Not only is it very powerful but McGregor is clinically accurate with it, in particular after he puts a marker on the chin of his opponent with a jab. So there we have it, a straight-forward look at the UFC 194 main event. For much more on the MMA event of the year, visit our MMA home page.