Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. We have a nice full slate of MMA action with some very promising looking fights over the next couple days, with a fun UFC show Saturday night, a Bellator with a huge main event Friday night, and a few good ONE bouts that took place this morning on YouTube. Very much looking forward to this weekend. So, as usual, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest over the next couple days:
Jose Aldo vs. Rob Font, UFC Fight Night
After a week off due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the UFC returns with a bang on Saturday night with a Fight Night card featuring some absolute heaters. Both of the top two fights feature extremely appealing stylistic matchups between excellent strikers on the way up. And in the main event, one of the greatest fighters of all time looks to continue a late-career renaissance against a white-hot contender who seems tailor-made to give him hell. Doesn’t get a lot better than that!
Jose Aldo is, of course, the GOAT candidate in question. During his dominant reign over the featherweight division from 2008-15, Aldo reached heights few could ever dare dream of. But as he reached his 30s, he slowed just a tad, and the competition got stronger. He lost his world title explosively to Conor McGregor in 2015, then dropped five of his next eight. Every one was to the elite of the elite, and every one was competitive. But it felt undoubtable – Jose Aldo’s time as a true title contender was over.
But actually… hold up a second on that. Over his last two fights, Aldo has not just won, he’s quite possibly looked better than ever. In his latest masterpiece – a unanimous decision win over Pedro Munhoz in August – Aldo reminded everyone watching that he’s one of the greatest to ever grace this fucking sport.
The public perception of Aldo has shifted greatly over the last year. An entire generation of fans brought in by McGregor previously only knew Aldo as the champ whom McGregor smoked in 13 seconds, entirely missing the run that made him one of the sport’s true legends. The losses that followed, no matter the circumstances, didn’t help. But in his performances against Munhoz and Marlon Vera, Aldo has changed the narrative. He’s now very much once again a world title contender, and millions of newer fans are learning to appreciate his amazing talents.
But in Rob Font, he’s not only facing one of the bantamweight division’s best ascendant contenders, he’s facing someone in the mold of fighters who have troubled him in the past. Font has won his last four to elevate himself to elite status at 135, and is coming off jabbing the face off former world champ Cody Garbrandt in a standout performance.
Perhaps the sport’s best pure jabber, Font fights at a very steady pace, comfortable with putting together a high volume striking performance for 25 minutes. And that provides an interesting contrast with Aldo. The former featherweight champ is one of the best technical strikers in MMA history, marrying that with perhaps the best takedown defense in MMA history. But while he’s in great shape for a fighter who’s coming on two decades as a pro, Aldo historically fades late, especially in five-rounders.
Three-round Aldo is a world-beater, but five-round Aldo is a much more manageable prospect. We saw it against Petr Yan, for example, where Aldo gave the world’s top 135er holy hell in the first half of the fight before Yan took control and won in the fifth. A fighter’s output has a large effect on that. FightMetric’s Richard Mann noted a crucial stat this week: in his UFC/WEC career, Aldo is 0-5 in fights where his opponents average five or more significant strikes per minute, and 20-1 when his opponents fall below that mark.
To this point, Font has averaged 5.58 significant strikes per minute, sixth all-time among UFC bantamweights. It’s that constant rhythm that poses a big threat to Aldo, who’s not the type of hitter who’s likely to get Font out of there quick, and who’s noticeably less explosive and dynamic than he was at his peak.
The surprising subplot to all this is the fact that Aldo is only nine months older than Font, but while both are angling to be the next bantamweight title challenger, they’re in extremely different places – Aldo is still great but his best years are undoubtedly behind him, while Font still feels like he’s on his initial rise, even though he’s 34 and has been fighting in the UFC since 2014.
The winner will have a decent argument for a title shot whenever the Yan-Aljamain Sterling boondoggle is resolved, and I’d love to see either guy in there. But we may be running out of chances to appreciate Aldo’s incredible skill – and I’m fascinated to see how he approaches a problem like Font.
Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Sergio Pettis, Bellator 272
Hell of a weekend for bantamweight MMA. One night before Aldo and Font face off, Bellator will be putting on one of the best fights the promotion can put on, with their current 135-pound champion defending the belt against a previous champ who never lost it in the cage.
Rewind back to 2017. Kyoji Horiguchi – one of the UFC’s best flyweights, holding a 7-1 Octagon record with the only loss coming in a title bout against Demetrious Johnson – decides to spurn the world’s top MMA organization and return home to Japan, to serve as a major pillar for the then-new RIZIN promotion. Horiguchi promptly moves up to 135 and dominates, and when RIZIN and Bellator begin a co-promotional deal in 2018, he affirms his status as the best fighter in either promotion.
Horiguchi first finishes Bellator champion Darrion Caldwell in the Saitama Super Arena at the end of 2018, then six months later rolls into Madison Square Garden – his first fight in the USA in almost five years – and outclasses Caldwell over five rounds to become champion of both promotions. The stage is set for a title reign the likes of which we haven’t seen before: a fighter holding belts in two major promotions at once, defending both against all comers.
That’s not what we got. Horiguchi returned to RIZIN two months later and ate a shocking one-minute, non-title knockout against the dynamic Kai Asakura, ending a win streak that spanned four years and 13 fights. He then suffered a serious knee injury during training, forcing him to relinquish both his titles. Then, there was the matter of this pandemic thing, which has made things more difficult – although Horiguchi is Japanese, he lives and trains in Florida with American Top Team, and COVID restrictions have reduced his ability to return home and fight in RIZIN. He managed to get in and regain his RIZIN title with a vengeful KO of Asakura last New Year’s Eve, but hasn’t fought in nearly a year since.
But if Horiguchi lives up to the hype against Sergio Pettis on Friday night, maybe we’ll actually get that double reign we all imagined. There are plenty of great fighters at American Top Team, historically one of the…. top teams in MMA. Ask anyone there, and they’ll tell you that Horiguchi is the best fighter there by a mile. Horiguchi hits shockingly hard for a small man, is remarkably fast and quick, and has developed extremely well in the grappling arena since his UFC title loss to DJ. He may very well be the single best bantamweight in the world, regardless of organization. Regaining the second belt will be a major point in his favor as he makes that argument.
It won’t be easy for him though. Over the last five years, we’ve watched Sergio Pettis grow from “Anthony‘s little brother” to a genuine star in his own right. One of the more intelligent and technically sound counter-strikers you’ll see in the sport, Pettis has truly come into his own since leaving the UFC and signing with Bellator in 2019, going 3-0 at bantamweight – he mostly fought at 125 in the Octagon – and winning the title on an excellent performance against Juan Archuleta in May.
Sergio was always overlooked in favor of his older brother in part because he didn’t possess Anthony’s jaw-dropping natural gifts. That forced Sergio to become an expert at the little things, the details that win or lose fights on the margins. He’s a ring technician far beyond the level you’d expect from a fighter his age – he’s still just 28 – and he has a very finely honed mind for the sport.
But in Horiguchi, he’ll be going up against a fighter who’s not only also a very technically sound fighter, but has every single one of those natural gifts that Pettis lacks. Pettis will likely have to put on a perfect performance to keep Horiguchi at bay – there are few I trust more to have his Ps and Qs minded quite as well as Pettis, but it’s a huge question whether it will be enough to fend off a fighter as marvelous as Horiguchi.
Along with A.J. McKee–Patricio Pitbull a few months back, this is about as big as a Bellator fight gets. That first one delivered. I hope this one does too.
Brad Riddell vs. Rafael Fiziev, UFC Fight Night
And if you just like watching good striking, boy howdy do we have a treat for you. This matchup was served straight to your plate by the striking gods. Lightweight rising stars Brad Riddell and Rafael Fiziev are among the best pure technical strikers that the UFC has to offer, and they’re on a collision course in Saturday’s main event as both angle their ways towards the 155-pound top 10.
Outside of the world of MMA, both have significant striking bona fides. Fiziev was a high-level Muay Thai competitor before pursuing MMA in 2015, and has for some time served as the main striking coach at the acclaimed Tiger Muay Thai gym in Thailand. Meanwhile, Riddell reached a high level himself as a professional kickboxer, putting together a record of 59-10 and matching up with big names in the sport like Regian Eersel and John Wayne Parr.
And since the pair debuted in the UFC in 2019, both have taken every opportunity to show off those skills. Riddell has rolled to a 4-0 record in the UFC, most recently topping the hard-hitting Drew Dober in a Fight of the Night decision in June. Meanwhile, Fiziev has rebounded from a debut loss to Magomed Mustafaev to record four straight wins of his own, looking extremely impressive in his last two, a KO win over Renato Moicano and a decision win over the always-difficult Bobby Green in August.
Beyond the attraction of having two hot, rising fighters face off on their ways to bigger and better things, it’s an appealing stylistic matchup. Fiziev is all action and energy, starting hot and keeping that pace as long as he can. Meanwhile, Riddell is much more measured, preferring to solve his opponents over the course of the fight and rolling once he has the read. Riddell isn’t the hitter that Fiziev is, but is tremendously advanced in his use of feints and combinations. Fiziev is pretty damn impressive in those aspects as well. A third round between a Fiziev who’s cooled off some and a settled-in Riddell could be fascinating to see.
There’s also the additional personal dynamic: the two have trained and coached together at Tiger Muay Thai and are longtime friends, giving them an even greater familiarity with each other. But when the offer came for them to fight each other, neither hesitated. Riddell is 30 and Fiziev is 28 – both are reaching their prime, and a fight like this in a co-main spot is a nice opportunity for both men.
And take it from no less an authority than Alexander Volkanovski when I say: this shit’s gonna be a banger.
Honorable mentions: Jimmy Crute vs. Jamahal Hill (two promising light heavyweights who both had horrible things done to their limbs in their last fight), Brendan Allen vs. Chris Curtis (a huge opportunity for Curtis, a longtime journeyman coming off a shocking short-notice KO win over Phil Hawes last month), Zhalgas Zhumagulov vs. Manel Kape (sneaky flyweight banger), Jake Matthews vs. Jeremiah Wells (sneakier welterweight banger), UFC Fight Night; Alexander Shabliy vs. Bobby King (Shabliy should be in big lightweight fights pretty soon), Kyle Crutchmer vs. Oliver Enkamp (Enkamp fell through the UFC cracks, but may end up being a steal in Bellator), Bellator 272; Stamp Fairtex vs. Ritu Phogat (finals of ONE’s atomweight grand prix), Timofey Nastyukhin vs. Dagi Arslanaliev (saw this one already, it RIPPED), ONE Winter Warriors
The Big Fight 