Aldo vs. Jung: How Scarface Was Able to Earn Victory

Death. Taxes. Jose Aldo retains his UFC featherweight championship.

The Brazilian titleholder once again proved that he's a near-guarantee to defend his belt every time out with a fourth-round TKO victory over Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163. 

Jung came into the fight with high hopes of finding a way to win, but the 26-year-old Aldo showed that he was just too quick, strong and dynamic to be beaten. The win pushed his record to 23-1 and gave him his seventh consecutive title defense since becoming the champion in the now defunct WEC promotion. 

So what were the keys to Aldo picking off yet another featherweight contender?

Let's examine.

Elusiveness 

"Elusive" might be a descriptor usually saved for fellow Brazilian, Lyoto Machida, but Aldo was the embodiment of the adjective Saturday night. 

According to FightMetric, Aldo was hit by just eight percent of Jung's strikes in the first round. While "The Korean Zombie" is usually known as a volume striker, that's a devastating statistic. Jung traditionally loves to engage his opponents in brawls, but that's difficult to do when the vast majority of your strikes are hitting nothing but air. 

Aldo didn't put together much offense in the first round himself. He only landed six significant strikes in the entire round, however, it was his ability to make Jung miss that set the tone for the fight. 

Through four rounds, Aldo absorbed just 17 significant strikes while Aldo landed a solid 32. His ability to make Jung miss not only kept him out of trouble, but set up some offense of his own as the fight wore on. 

Superior Grappling

We're used to seeing Jose Aldo, the prolific striking assassin. On Saturday night we saw Jose Aldo, the grappling extraordinaire. 

The champion does hold a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, but it's not something we see shine through in his game very often. Because of a foot injury that Aldo believed was a broken foot, we saw some extensive grappling from the champion. 

MMA Junkie tweeted out the news of the potentially serious foot injury:

Like a true champion, Aldo didn't let the bum foot hold him back. He adjusted his strategy and became a grappler first, completing five of six takedown attempts throughout the fight. He scored a takedown in each round of the fight. 

The win showed off his versatility and proved that Aldo can make adjustments when things don't go his way. 

Killer Instinct

Even though we didn't see the typical Aldo striking barrage that we've grown accustomed to, he still showed his classic killer instinct when it comes to finishing fights. 

When Chan Sung Jung suffered an apparent separated shoulder, the champion immediately swarmed the challenger with kicks and punches as he looked to put the fight away. As Jeremy Botter of Bleacher Report pointed out, Jung attempted to pop the shoulder back into place. 

While it's highly unlikely that the Korean Zombie could have put his shoulder back together in time to mount a comeback, Aldo made sure there was no chance of anything crazy happening. 

It wasn't pretty, but it was a stark reminder that Aldo will do whatever it takes to walk out of the Octagon with his title belt around his waist.