Mighty Mouse: McGregor’s stance and guard passing will trouble Aldo

Appearing before the gathered media at UFC 187, Demetrious ‘Might Mouse’ Johnson gave his own unique take on July 11’s much-anticipated featherweight clash between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor.

According to the flyweight champion, Aldo will be dealing with a completely new kind of opponent when he takes on the surging Irishman. Although the Brazilian is particularly known for his leg kicks, ‘Might Mouse’ maintained that McGregor’s southpaw stance would allow him to check the strikes with relative ease.

Furthermore, Johnson identified McGregor’s trend of getting his opponents to overextend on their strikes as something that could be crucial to his chances of claiming the victory at UFC 189.

“It’s going to be tough,” said ‘DJ’ when asked about the featherweight championship bout. “With Aldo, I think when he fought Chad Mendes both times, Chad just did well and came forward, but Aldo gets into a state where he does this (feints) and throws his leg kick.

“I think he just mesmerizes people, but with Conor McGregor, I don’t think he will be able to that. He’s longer, he comes forward and he’s a southpaw. I’d say he’s going to be able to check them leg kicks, the inside kicks.

“Conor gets people to overextend. He will pop, pop, pop, pop (shadow boxing) and then angle. Left hand, right cross and we’ve seen him throw knees too so it’s going to be interesting. Aldo has never had a guy come at him the way Conor will.”

A lot of people highlight McGregor’s grappling as a weakness when assessing his all round game, but not Johnson. As far as the champion is concerned, McGregor’s tendency to pass guard should be embraced by more athletes in the sport. He also claimed that should McGregor be able to pass Aldo’s guard, he could put the Brazilian in a considerable amount of danger.

“Aldo can wrestle. In that Korean Zombie fight he did some great wrestling in there. People forget about fights, in America people are always forgetting about things but I don’t forget about stuff.

“And Conor can wrestle too. He did a great lateral drop on Diego Brandao. Conor McGregor, he does one thing really well, he passes guard. A lot of people are content to just take people down and throw a few punches, but it’s like dude – pass guard.

“He does that very well and that’s actually how he blew his ACL against Max Holloway. If he can do that against a guy like Jose Aldo and make him work – Mark Hominick got him down, postured up and started punching – but if you get him down you should pass his guard and settle into your position.

“Then you can go for a crucifix or start working your submission game if you have it. There’s a lot of fighters that seem to be missing them key points, he isn’t, but we’ll have to see,” he finished.

@PetesyCarroll