Jose Aldo vs Chad Mendes: Money in over His Head Against Aldo

The only thing better than a championship bout is a championship bout between two fighters with completely different styles.

That's what we're going to see in the UFC 142 main event bout between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes, who will scrap for the UFC featherweight championship. In this case, Aldo is your deadly striker and Mendes is your powerful wrestler.

Aldo is the consensus favorite, and it's easy to see why. He hasn't lost a fight in more than six years, and he has spent the last couple years dispatching opponents with relative ease. You really can't blink during one of his fights, lest you miss something amazing.

To beat Aldo, Mendes is going to have to get him off his feet, plain and simple. If he can get Aldo to the ground, the two will be fighting Mendes' fight, and it goes without saying that's a fight he can win.

It also goes without saying that getting Aldo off his feet is a much easier said than done.

What we know about Aldo is that he's going to land his strikes. He lands 49 percent of the strikes he attempts, and he does a very good job of avoiding trouble and keeping his opponents on the defensive. Aldo's opponents have to know that he is a threat to deliver a killer blow at any given moment, which is a considerable psychological advantage.

I'm not about to go so far as to say that Mendes is afraid of Aldo (he's not), but it's safe to assume that Mendes knows what he has to do, and that's aggressively pursue chances to get the fight on the ground and hope that Aldo presents him with an opportunity to do so.

The trouble is that Aldo's no easy takedown. On the contrary, his takedown defense is very good. He knows what he does best, and he knows how to keep himself in a position to do what he does best.

To be sure, Aldo does have his weaknesses. Every fighter does. The dilemma at hand for Mendes is that Aldo's weaknesses are not easily exploitable. There's going to be a lot of pressure on him to find a way to do the improbable.

It doesn't help that Mendes is going to be surrounded by thousands of Brazilians who would like nothing more than to see him become Aldo's next victim. Aldo has the home-Octagon advantage, as it were, and that's an advantage that should not be downplayed by Mendes, or anyone else for that matter.

In the event Mendes pulls off the upset, he will have sent a pretty loud message to the rest of the featherweight ranks.

If Aldo wins, Mendes will be just another victim, and he'll be left to fight his way back to the top of the ranks.

And make no mistake, nobody is going to be surprised if Aldo wins. It's his fight to lose.