18 career wins, 14 finishes, 12 by (T)KO, three Knockout of the Night honors, two world title defenses by the age of 24, currently on an 11-fight win streak, 7 of his last 8 wins were won via (T)KO, and he's currently ranked as the No. 3 Pound-For-Pound fighter in the world by many reputable MMA outlets such as Sherdog.com and Yahoo! Sports.
That is just a short list of accolades that former WEC Featherweight champ and current UFC Featherweight champ Jose Aldo has acquired in just 24 years on this Earth.
No one can dispute the fact that Jose Aldo is one of the most exciting fighters in all of MMA to watch. Aldo had an eight-fight stint in the WEC before it merged with the UFC. He won all eight fights and won seven by way of knockout/technical knockout.
The only fighter that Aldo was unable to finish was in his first title defense against arguably the greatest Featherweight champion of all time, Urijah Faber.
In this fight, however, Aldo won all five rounds in convincing fashion earning the unanimous decision victory. This fight is well known for Aldo landing countless leg kicks against Faber’s left leg, which he was unable to walk on for close to a month after the fight.
Aldo’s second title defense was against Armenian judo star Manny Gamburyan. Many thought that Gamburyan’s judo and wrestling skills would prove to be quite a challenge for the Brazilian champion. However, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jose seemed to toy with Gamburyan during the first round before knocking him out in impressive fashion at the 1:32 mark of Round 2.
Aldo has other notable and destructive and highlight reel wins over Jonathan Brookins, Cub Swanson and Mike Brown (the win that earned him the WEC Featherweight title).
Although Aldo holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, he has predominantly become known as a knockout artist and likes to keep his fights standing as much as possible.
Jose’s next opponent, Mark Hominick, has proven to have very heavy hands as well, winning two of his last three fights by TKO, and out of 20 career victories nine have come by way of knockout.
When Aldo and Hominick faceoff on April 30 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Hominick, an Ontario native, will be fighting in front of a home crowd of 55,000 and is likely to have the majority of the fans behind him.
However, fighting in front of a hostile crowd won’t be a first for Aldo, and won’t be something that he can’t overcome.
His first title defense was at WEC 48 in Sacramento, California where he fought “The California Kid” Urijah Faber. There were 12,000-plus screaming fans, the vast majority of whom were cheering for “The California Kid”, and Aldo wasn’t affected in the least.
Come April 30, when Jose Aldo goes for his third title defense (his first as UFC Featherweight champ) against Muay Thai specialist Mark Hominick, he will make a large bid for top pound-for-pound-in-the-world status with a win.
Although, with UFC Welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and UFC Middleweight champ Anderson Silva being the two fighters ranked higher, it will be hard to move up the list.
GSP fights on April 30 as well. If St-Pierre gets defeated by No. 1 Welterweight contender Jake Shields, his stock on the P4P rankings is very likely to drop, leaving room for Jose Aldo to move up.
The odds, however, are huge in both St-Pierre and Aldo’s favor that they win their respective bouts, thus with both fighters winning, it would be hard to argue for Aldo to eclipse GSP in the rankings.
Whatever the case may be, if Aldo is able to keep up his dominating success against Hominick and future opponents, it’s only a matter of time before he is crowned the Pound-For-Pound King of the MMA world.
Samantha Mathis Samantha Morton Grace Park Jill Wagner Susie Castillo
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