UFC 142 Fight Card: What a Chad Mendes Win Means for the Featherweight Division

If Chad Mendes beats UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo in the champ's home country of Brazil, the featherweight division will be turned on its head.

Mendes has strength, conditioning and the ability to control an opponent like only a wrestler can.

If he manages to make it past Aldo, the best striker in the division, then he'll be atop the featherweight world for quite some time.

What will it mean specifically?

Domination.

Even though Aldo hasn't looked that great in his last two UFC performances, he is still miles above everyone at featherweight.

MMA math doesn't always work, but if Mendes beats Aldo, what does that say about Mendes' standing in the division?

Even from a skill set standpoint, Mendes is best suited to beat most—if not all—fighters at featherweight.

No fighter at featherweight can wrestle with him, so stopping his takedowns will be difficult. The strong wrestling of Mendes also puts him in a good position against Brazilian jiu-jitsu-oriented fighters since they won't able to take him down.

If he takes them down, he'll be able to control them and avoid submissions.

His wrestling also allows him to dominate hapless strikers like Aldo who likely won't have an answer for his explosive shot.

A Mendes win means that the featherweight division, like middleweight, welterweight and light heavyweight, is controlled by a champion who is a cut above the rest of the fighters.