UFC 136 Fight Card: What Kenny Florian Must Do to Defeat Jose Aldo

There is not one easy blueprint that Kenny Florian can follow to defeat UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo; Florian must use every ounce of his fighting skill and cunning to take the belt home to Boston.

Jose Aldo is considered to be one of the pound-for-pound best fighters in mixed martial arts and his Muay Thai-based striking attack is absolutely brutal—especially his leg kicks that destroyed the leg of former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber.

The champ also has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to complement his overall MMA game.

Florian's skill set is very similar to Aldo's.

His striking is rooted primarily in Muay Thai (he trained under American Muay Thai guru Mark Dellagrotte) and has a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt as well.

How can Florian beat a fighter who is essentially a mirror image of himself but better in (arguably) every aspect?

It won't be easy; Florian definitely won't be able to score a quick knockout or submission, that's for sure.

In Aldo's last fight—against Canadian Mark Hominick—Aldo began to tire as the fight went on and Hominick was nearly able to finish Aldo with some ground and pound.

Florian needs to use this fact to his advantage; he needs to make Aldo work and take him into the later rounds, make him tired.

However, Florian can't push the pace too much. Florian cuts a large amount of weight to hit 145 pounds and weight cutting isn't necessarily a good thing as far as cardiovascular conditioning is concerned. If Florian goes too hard, he will gas himself out and lose.

In addition, Florian can't risk getting into a kickboxing match with Aldo because he'll get beat. He needs to close the distance, employ a Randy Couture-esque style of grinding his opponent against the cage and making Aldo carry his weight to tire him out.

Florian also needs to at least attempt a few takedowns so that Aldo is less open with his strikes since he'll be worried about being taken to the mat.

If Florian executes these actions with perfect precision (and he'll need perfect precision for these to be successful) then he will earn a unanimous decision victory or late (T)KO and the "Florian is a choke artist" stigma will finally be removed from him. He'll be a UFC champion!