Tuesday, November 17 6:36 am PT: Five feet six inches tall and a child actor-sized 145 lbs., Mike Thomas Brown is evidence that tough men come in all shapes and sizes. Most would give him a fair chance against several 155 lb. fighters; he would probably pick off a few 170 lb. athletes if you got him mad enough. His technique is aggression. Some fighters are gentle finishers, rolling you into a submissive ball and hugging you after. Brown wants you to need a nurse to assist in chewing.
None of this is news to Jose Aldo, a blitzing striker and jiu-jitsu black belt who has lost only once, four years ago, and washed that out by taking victories in his next eight fights. He is everything Brown is not: a little reckless, long, sometimes airborne. Brown can counter by digging a trench in the canvas and stuffing Aldo in there for five rounds.
What It Means: Brown has potential to become the or Georges St. Pierre of the 145 lb. weight class: making good fighters look lost.
Third Party Investor:Urijah Faber, the WEC’s most familiar face, who probably can’t beat Brown but might find a more inviting style match in Aldo.
Wild Card: Aldo’s striking doesn’t follow convention: it will either confuse Brown as it has others, or Brown will exploit it with a more disciplined offense and heavier hands than Aldo is used to.
Who Wins: Brown might eat a few coming in, but he’s a guy that would get angry, not concussed, if you took a bat over his head. Brown by TKO.
Tuesday, November 17 6:30 am PT: While being the furthest thing possible from a not-for-profit organization, Zuffa remains fairly generous when it comes to offering high-level, competitive fights for free. If the strategy is to do the exact opposite of the greedy financiers that stifled boxing in the 1990s, then the strategy is working.
Wednesday’s WEC event on Versus -- Zuffa’s third event in eight days -- determines the world’s top featherweight fighter, a role previously held by both Urijah Faber and Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto. Challenger Jose Aldo has TKOed every single one of his five WEC opponents, dispelling the commonly-held thought that sub-155 athletes don’t have knockout power; champion Mike Thomas Brown is also undefeated in the promotion, having taken Faber’s title in very violent fashion.
