Preview: UFC 251 ‘Usman vs. Masvidal’ Main Card

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UFC Bantamweight Championship

Petr Yan (14-1) vs. Jose Aldo (28-6)

ODDS: Yan (-220), Aldo (+180)

He finds himself in a fight for the vacant title, but Aldo’s cut to bantamweight remains a questionable experiment. After storming up the World Extreme Cagefighting ranks like a buzzsaw, Aldo eventually settled into being the technician’s favorite fighter during his reign as UFC champion. The huge moments like his eight-second knockout of Cub Swanson were long gone, but the Brazilian proved himself to be one of the best defensive fighters in the history of mixed martial arts, discouraging and negating whatever his opponents had to offer while cruising to victory after victory. However, the end comes for every dominant champion, and even beyond Conor McGregor’s 13-second knockout of the “King of Rio,” two decisive losses to Max Holloway revealed that featherweight was now a younger man’s division. Aldo still had a resurgence left in him—Jeremy Stephens and Renato Carneiro learned that Aldo can still cause a ton of damage in a shot-for-shot brawl—but a loss to Alexander Volkanovski left him without much of a direction going forward. As a result, it was not necessarily a surprise that Aldo would change weight classes, but after years of struggling with his weight cut and teasing a move to lightweight, it was a shock when he announced he would be cutting down to 135 pounds. Aldo seemingly pulled off the weight cut with ease, and while he looked terrible cosmetically, his bantamweight debut was a mixed bag at worst inside of the cage. On the plus side, Aldo fought about even with one of the best bantamweights in the world in Marlon Moraes, but there was a surprising lack of nuance to the former featherweight champion’s approach. As the larger fighter, Aldo was content to adopt the role of bully and charge forward without much regard for the defense that made him such a feared champion. Moraes still got the nod on the scorecards, yet things somehow all worked out to Aldo’s advantage. Then-bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo still saw Aldo as his biggest-money challenger, and with UFC 250 slated for Rio de Janeiro in May, the UFC agreed and named the Nova Uniao cornerstone the No. 1 contender, even though he was coming off of a loss. That all got scuttled thanks to the pandemic and travel issues getting out of Brazil, but with Cejudo retired and the belt suddenly vacant, Aldo has still somehow been grandfathered into the new title fight. That is the good news. The bad news? He has to fight Petr Yan.

Yan has seemingly been marked for stardom since he first burst onto the Russian scene, and the fighting son of Siberia has lived up to that reputation every step of the way. Already proven against strong competition, there were only two real questions once Yan was signed by the UFC: How quickly would he be able to round into a contender in a deep bantamweight division, and would he be able to keep up his considerable level of violence? As it turns out, the answers were “quickly” and “oh, yeah.” Yan quickly hit the ground running with a knockout of Teruto Ishihara and a war against Jin Soo Son, then went about his business of becoming a title contender. John Dodson and Jimmie Rivera provided Yan with some interesting tests, but they slowed down the buzzsaw more than they stopped it. A December win over Urijah Faber did exactly what it needed to do, affirming that Yan is one of the future stars of this division—if he is not there already. Yan usually takes a round or so to feel things out, but once he manages to get into a groove and start taking advantage, there is a frightening glee in how he lives up to his “No Mercy” nickname. The Faber fight essentially turned into a case of Yan playing with his food, as he had a grand time picking apart the legend before putting his lights out with a head kick. If Yan wins here, he us not guaranteed to reign over the division, but that speaks more to the depth and versatility of contenders in what is becoming the UFC’s most interesting pool of talent. At the very least, Yan looks set to remain among the bantamweight elite for years to come, which is great news for everyone but his opponents.

Yan is an excellent fighter, but he is not invincible. There are legitimate questions about how he fares against the strongest wrestlers at bantamweight, and again, Dodson and Rivera were able to slow him down. The Rivera fight in particular showed that if an opponent is willing to counter and trade with Yan, the Russian will disengage and regroup before finding another way to get his game going. That is good news for this new, more aggressive version of Aldo; and given that his wins over Stephens and Carneiro showed that he can still win a blow-for-blow war, there is even a chance that the Brazilian can score a surprising knockout in the process. However, that aggression came with a complete abandonment of Aldo’s defense, and therein lies the rub. Even if Yan has to take a while to figure things out, Aldo should keep presenting him with a canvas with which to work; and once something clicks for Yan, this figures to go downhill quickly for the former featherweight king. This should be a fun and tense affair, but it could get brutal by the end. The pick is Yan via fourth-round stoppage.

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