The fight business is often just that: a business. There’s money to be made, and promotions exert a great deal of energy and time to hype upcoming bouts and draw in eyes hungry for entertainment. No one in the realm of prizefighting understands this more than Conor McGregor. An audience wants to be captivated, applaud their chosen champions and jeer the unworthy before them. Conor McGregor is more than happy to provide all the spectacles and pageantry as he builds his legacy before us . Jose Aldo on the other hand, wants nothing more than to end the brash Irishman’s legend right here and now.

There’s nothing a promoter must love more than a fight that sells itself, and fighters that back up their bold, outlandish claims. In longtime champion José Aldo Junior and would-be usurper to the throne Conor McGregor, the UFC have created the perfect storm: a nigh invincible, humble and respected champion, undefeated for almost a decade facing his greatest foe in a loud mouthed, rising superstar that left a trail of destruction en route to this showdown.

Undeniably, both men are among the best featherweights on the planet. On Saturday, December 12th, however, there can be only one champion, one king. José Aldo seeks to extinguish any doubt as to who rules his kingdom, and defend his 145-pound title for a record eighth time, while Conor McGregor, the interim champion, attempts to unify the belts and end the reign of the division’s thus far only champion.

In preparation for this fight, I took a look at the past four fights of each combatant, in order to examine each fighter’s habits, quirks and potential strategies.

José Aldo has been champion for a very, very long time, and with good reason. He’s fought the best, and made many of them look mediocre. Whether his opponents try to out strike him, or take him to the ground and wrestle, Aldo seems comfortable in any situation. Over his last four title defenses, Aldo faced stiff competition in his rematch with Chad “Money” Mendes, former UFC lightweight champion Frankie “The Answer” Edgar, Ricardo “the Bully” Lamas and the man with easily the best nickname of the bunch, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung. Of these bouts, Aldo only managed to finish the Korean Zombie when Chan Sung Jung dislocated his shoulder and was unable to defend against Aldo’s onslaught.

Those four fights provided over 90 minutes of footage on José Aldo and his favorite techniques and go-to moves. An orthodox fighter, Aldo’s lead left hand has been hailed as one of his best weapons. While his jab is incredibly important, it isn’t simply used for pushing an opponent back or stopping their advance; Aldo’s jab is best when used as the precursor for his famed leg kicks. Against Ricardo Lamas, it’s true that Aldo’s jab found its home time and time again on Lamas’ chin, but it only proved a genuine threat when followed up with a rear, right legged kick. The jab helps Aldo close distance, unbalance his opponent and move them backward, making them the ideal target for one of Aldo’s arching, forceful kicks.

Notice how after almost every lead left thrown, Aldo follows up with a leg kick, which serves a dual function; disrupting Lamas’ balance and thus preventing a quick retreat, and limiting future quick movements due to the damage received. Aldo ensures that his kicks are powerful by fully rotating his hips and following through; even if the blow doesn’t land flush, the sheer velocity can force the opponent’s lead leg away from them.

Another important factor when discussing Aldo’s jab, is the perpetual feinting motion he employs. In each of the fights examined, Aldo’s lead hand is never still; he constantly feints the jab to keep his opponents wary of it, and is even capable of changing the length at which he feints. Against Chad Mendes, Aldo’s feinted jab was longer, causing Mendes to constantly parry it with his right hand. The constant parrying neutralized Mendes’ own power hand, while also compelling Mendes to adjust to Aldo’s timing, rather than set his own pace.

Fighting Aldo at his pace, has proven to be a bad idea. Frankie Edgar and Chad Mendes both tried to set frantic, quick paces against the champ, and found success in the later rounds when he tired, but José Aldo is particularly adept at dictating the momentum of a fight. Every time Frankie Edgar tried to box into range and close the distance, the larger, lengthier Aldo would unleash straight punches and use a lead stiff arm to halt Edgar’s approach.

In other instances, Aldo has shown subtleties to his boxing that prove that his success is no fluke. In a move straight out of the Floyd Mayweather playbook, Aldo has shown the wherewithal to lean his upper body slightly towards his opponent, creating the impression that he’s closer than he actually is. Then, as his enemy lunges in, Aldo corrects his posture and takes a step back; the opposing fighter misses and is then in a position to be countered.

If someone does manage to back Aldo up against the cage, he’s shown remarkable defense in the clinch and against takedowns, defending them 91% of the time. In the clinch, Aldo controls the opponents’ hips, defends well against body strikes, and has also displayed a variety of trips and takedowns of his own.

On the ground, it doesn’t matter if Aldo is on top or bottom, he’s dangerous everywhere. In dominant position, Aldo seems to find ways to slip past guard, often straight into full mount. Aldo is an accomplished Brazilian Jiujistu practitioner, and it definitely shows. He controls his opponent’s head, maneuvers them to his liking, and springs to his desired position.

This isn’t to say however, that Aldo is invincible. Cardio has always seemed to be an issue for him; he can be considered rather large for the 145-pound division and therefore has more weight to cut to reach the limit for competition. In the later championship rounds, Aldo’s pace visibly slows, and this is when his opponents generally find success. Frankie Edgar managed to find good angles in the fourth and fifth rounds of his encounter with Aldo, and landed many great shots when angling in and out of exchanges. When pressured, Aldo sometimes finds himself flat footed, and his evasive actions seem more akin to a springboard, reflex reaction than crisp, smooth movements.

Chad Mendes’ best moments in his rematch with Aldo, came in close quarters when his quick pace dictated the match. Mendes’ short, stiff hooks proved to be his most effective counterpunch to Aldo’s aggression, even knocking the champ down during one exchange.

Aldo’s reliance on his jab as the antecedent to most of his combos allowed Mendes another chink in the armor to exploit. Mendes managed to slip some of Aldo’s jabs and replied with a right uppercut, followed by several left hooks thrown from southpaw stance that all landed squarely on Aldo’s chin. Mendes tried switching stances often during that bout, but only found success by switching without allowing Aldo to notice, that is, during a combo already in progress. The success in southpaw may prove a key talking point, given Aldo’s dancing partner on Saturday night.

Many things can be said about Conor McGregor: he’s brash, loud, maybe even arrogant. In the same breath, one can also say he’s different, technical and the living embodiment of confidence. Either way, we can all agree that the man is unique. His fighting style, his approach to combat, his extravagant press conference suits and his eccentric habit of predicting his fights’ outcomes reflect his personality in and out of the ring. Most fighters aspire to be like their heroes: Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and the like, but Conor McGregor undoubtedly wants to be Conor McGregor and nothing else.

If José Aldo is big for the featherweight division, McGregor is a giant. McGregor has a two inch height advantage over Aldo, but the real measurement that counts is his four inch reach advantage. Like Aldo, McGregor also has a fairly large weight cut down to 145 pounds, but we’ve never seen him go more than three rounds to determine if his cardio suffers in the later rounds like Aldo’s does. Over his last four fights, McGregor’s fight time totals to just under 23 minutes; therefore his habits are slightly more difficult to discern when compared to Aldo’s lengthy fight times.

Still, all fighters are creatures of habit; what is drilled in the gym, shows on fight night. McGregor likes to keep his stance wide and his base relatively low, while his upper body seems precariously upright and he holds his hands dangerously low. Anyone looking at still image of McGregor in the ring could understandably think that this stance is ineffective in a fight. And yet, they’d be wrong.

A southpaw, Conor McGregor has been preaching the concept of movement ever since he burst on to the scene a few years back. He claims he’s studied various animals, ranging from gorillas to the large cats to understand how movement works, and how different bodies move efficiently. To most, this sounds like either new-age smoke and mirrors, or a throwback to the era in which different martial arts styles were named after the animals that inspired them. To be fair, it may be a little bit of both.

In the various videos and hype reels leading up to any of his bouts, McGregor can be seen performing various exercises based on body weight. He crawls around the mats of the Straight Blast Gym in his native Ireland, miming different motions that help his flexibility and core strength. In turn, these exercises allow McGregor to be relaxed and loose in the ring; characteristics that benefit his style greatly.

McGregor’s relaxed, wide stance allows him transitions to the kicks he loves without much telegraphing, while still granting him the spring in his step needed to avoid an attack.

It’s clear how much McGregor practices the various kicks in his formidable arsenal; he almost always opens with an axe kick, or a spinning back kick. To show how confident he is in his ability to land any of these, McGregor often sought to land teeps or push kicks to the body and legs of Chad Mendes. Mendes, a talented wrestler who filled in as McGregor’s opponent when Aldo was pulled from the bout due to injury, was thought to make quick work of McGregor if he latched on to any of those kicks. Instead, McGregor landed kicks to the midsection often, hampering the breathing of an already tired Chad Mendes.

Where José Aldo likes to set up his leg kicks with his hands, as is traditionally taught, Conor McGregor likes to precede his kicks with, well, another kick. It sounds implausible, but it works. Aldo feints his jab, or throws it outright, and then lets his right leg loose; Conor instead feints a lead kick then converts to a rear legged switch kick. The opponent might have braced his left side or raised his left leg to check the kick, leaving the right side exposed to McGregor’s incoming left leg.

McGregor’s toolbox is more than awkward movement and flashy kicks however; his initial discipline was the sweet science: boxing.

The fundamentals of good boxing are clear when looking at the shots McGregor chooses and the way he moves when his opponent is backed against the cage. In his southpaw stance, McGregor cuts the cage with ease, but does so at range. He turns his body so that it is almost perpendicular to the cage wall, which in turn forces his opponent to go in the opposite direction away from him or risk walking into McGregor’s lead hand.

Cutting the ring off and maneuvering his opponent to where he wants them, McGregor is then in position to unleash a barrage of straight punches. This is another area where McGregor’s judgement of distance and utilization of reach absolutely shines. He either boxes or feints his way in behind his long jab and throws his weighted left hand beautifully after it, getting full rotation from his hips and all the power that comes with it. It’s a shot that dropped Diego Brandão, Dennis Siver and Chad Mendes.

Even if an opponent isn’t baited by the feint or defends the jab well, McGregor has displayed a knack for finding his way around raised guards. If his straight shots are likely to be met with a raised forearm, McGregor switches to hooks and uppercuts; he lands with 44% accuracy, much in thanks to his fantastic shot selection.

McGregor likes to say when his opponents feel his hand, they all crumble. Given the evidence, I’m inclined to agree with him.

On the ground, McGregor’s jiujitsu can be as slick as his stand up at times. He posts a 67% takedown defense which isn’t particularly outstanding, but when he’s taken down, has proven to be a handful. Mendes wrestled McGregor to the ground with ease in their bout, and managed to do quite alot of damage (note the bloodied face of McGregor in the clip above) but still collected a few elbows from the bottom for his troubles.

When McGregor is in dominant position, he’s a nightmare. Much like his upcoming opponent, McGregor seems to understand how to manipulate his opponent’s frame so that passes are more readily available to him. He controls the hips well, always seems to have his head positioned in just the right spot, and is savvy enough to defend attempts at breathing disruption by his opposite number. Just look at how he uses his own legs to control Dennis Siver’s to slip past guard and into mount:

So how do José Aldo and Conor McGregor match up against each other? Both men share a penchant for keeping fights on the feet, but are very comfortable on the ground as well. Aldo is the most dominant featherweight in the history of the sport with good reason; he’s fast, powerful and when the situation calls for it, absolutely vicious. McGregor is a departure from the norm of combat sports nowadays; his philosophy is rooted in movement and confidence and selective striking when the moment is ideal.

For Aldo, aggression may not be the best plan of attack. While he is a better fighter moving forward than counterpunching and moving away, McGregor has built a career in baiting his opponents in and using his reach advantage to interrupt their offensive advances. With one man being an orthodox fighter and the other a southpaw, the conventional pros and cons that arise when these stances face each other are also to be considered.

In the case of this fight, a technique that would grant either fighter significant success would be a lead kick to the opponent’s lead knee or thigh. Sometimes done with the rear leg and called an oblique kick, a blow to the lead leg of a fighter in the area on or above the knee generally serves to pause the forward progress of that fighter. Due to Aldo’s occasional reluctance to throw a leg kick without first establishing a jab, it’s possible McGregor may be the first to utilize this skill.

On paper, McGregor has all the tools one would need to end Aldo’s decade long dynasty atop the featherweight division: a four inch reach advantage, elusive movement, heavy hands, excellent timing and placement of strikes, and a decent ground game. However, José Aldo isn’t someone you can confidently bet against. McGregor has shown he’s susceptible to top notch wrestling, and while keeping him down is extremely difficult, it is possible. He takes a lot of damage while held down because he doesn’t control the hands of his opponent; Chad Mendes landed huge elbows that drew blood from McGregor in this position.

Given how competitive I expect this fight to be, I think looking at one more extenuating factor would be prudent. Each of McGregor’s opponents have suffered in the ring, but really lost the fight before the first bell was even struck. Diego Brandão, Chad Mendes and Dustin Poirier in particular, felt the full extent of Conor’s now famed trash talking barrage.

Facing McGregor in Dublin, Brandão allowed himself to be baited by the taunting Irishman, putting himself firmly in McGregor’s palms. He entered fight week apparently unfazed by McGregor’s words, but at the weigh in, showed how emotional and anxious he really was. McGregor’s prediction of a victory via decapitation seemed to shake Brandão’s very core, and his night ended in the first round.

Dustin Poirier, who was certain he wouldn’t be lured into McGregor’s mind games, found himself visibly upset during the build up to fight week. McGregor called Poirier a “journeyman”, and criticized every aspect of his game. In the bout itself, the uncertainty and emotion Poirier took into the octagon ensured he never settled, and McGregor made quick work of him.

José Aldo seems to be a man that is never shaken, never bothered by his opponent’s barbs and insults. When he enters the octagon, he never lays eyes on them until the first bell rings and the war begins. In every fight thus far, he’s shown little to no reaction to any criticism received by the opposing camp or media; Aldo’s mental fortress could not be breached.

I’ll venture to say that not only has McGregor effectively sieged Aldo’s mind, he’s residing there now too. Before this fight was even announced the first time, McGregor never passed on the opportunity to call the featherweight champ out. For the most part, Aldo seemed unperturbed by McGregor’s attempts; he even laughed in McGregor’s face when the latter charged him at ringside following a second round TKO over Dennis Siver.

During the press tour to hype the fight however, Aldo began showing telltale signs that McGregor was getting under his skin. He seemed visibly agitated and gave warnings that he didn’t want McGregor to touch him. Aldo began retaliating to McGregor’s digs at him, leading off with this hilarious moment:

McGregor responded in kind, doing everything in his ability to irritate Aldo and broadcast his predictions at every opportunity. Sometimes bad blood serves to hype a fight, but often enough it causes one or both fighters to become emotional. An emotional fighter is good if the fighter uses this emotion as fuel, and is able to remain disciplined in a high pressure situation. A fighter that cannot keep his cool? This is a fighter that will make mistakes, try to overcompensate on every strike and go for the kill before the moment presents itself. This is a fighter that will forget his training, and in the heat of the moment, find himself in bad positions.

With McGregor’s mental assault lasting over a year so far, I fear the champ might allow himself to become this fighter. In the last stop on the UFC’s press tour, McGregor did the unthinkable, the one action sure to get an emotional rise out of Aldo, and provoke his entire being as a proud champion. Conor McGregor grabbed the championship belt directly away from Aldo.

Grabbing the belt was the ultimate sign of disrespect towards Aldo’s lengthy reign. In the last decade, the only man to have raised that belt as his own, was José Aldo himself. With this final affront, McGregor got exactly what he wanted: an emotional, upset opponent.

I expect José Aldo to be the aggressor in this bout, trying to walk down McGregor and cut the ring from him, and hiding takedown shots behind his stellar striking combos.Trying to stand with a longer opponent who prefers to counter-punch may not be the best strategy for Aldo. If he gets McGregor to the ground, he may very well be able to land devastating elbows and finish this fight within the distance. If a takedown is unattainable, forcing McGregor against the cage and striking within the clinch may be Aldo’s best bet, as he’s shown a preference for landing huge knees in close quarters.

For the interim champion Conor McGregor, the best gameplan surely must be to keep the fight on the feet, and to capitalize on the mistakes a potentially emotionally compromised Aldo might make. McGregor is adept at finding and cutting great angles that allow him full use of his range. Therefore, he doesn’t necessarily need to set a high tempo to his striking, he can settle into Aldo’s rhythm and pick the shots he thinks would be best. If he can control Aldo’s lead hand with his own, he may be able to avoid the typical left hand-right leg combo Aldo loves to use. Good use of kicks to the body and lead leg of Aldo would prevent the champ’s aggression from having effect, and also degrade stamina.

The longer this fight goes, the better it may be for the challenger. Aldo almost always fades in the final rounds, and he’s not necessarily the most evasive fighter. If McGregor can weather the early storm that Aldo brings, his chances of survival, and even victory increase exponentially. Surviving that ordeal however, is no easy task; expect Conor’s chin to be tested thoroughly in the opening rounds.

The UFC has been hyping this bout as its most anticipated for the year, and it’s hard to argue against them. McGregor has been calling for Aldo for a very long time, and he’s made his predictions clear already. He’s certainly been right before, and on Saturday, we get to see if the man who calls himself “Mystic Mac” has the right answer one more time.