Would Aldo have beaten Pettis to win the lightweight title?

[PrideNverDies]

Yes ala Barboza

 

[Levi_]

Perhaps he could have been a 2-division champ, but no, he would not have been a 3-division champ, that's an exaggeration.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

I love Aldo, but I think we over-rate him and under-rate Pettis in hindsight.

At his peak when he beat Bendo for the title Pettis was incredibly dangerous and explosive with a diversity of attacks, with his biggest weakness being against pressure fighters. He would have size, reach, power and durability advantages, but would be giving up speed, depth of striking technique, and a more proven fighting process. Since Aldo isn't a natural pressure-fighter you'd find Pettis with lots of time and space to get set-ups going and look for shots, he wouldn't be on the back foot eating tons of volume because Aldo only did that to shorter wrestle-boxers he could bully with leg kicks.

Probably a 50/50 fight but because Aldo didn't fall off as hard as Pettis we have a fonder memory of his prime.

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

Aldo would wrestle if necessary and I would say he has better postional game than Pettis

That's certainly possible. I do think he'd be a better wrestler, and he was certainly more powerful but don't know if he'd still be stronger with the size difference

Perhaps he could have been a 2-division champ, but no, he would not have been a 3-division champ, that's an exaggeration.

Dependent on timing. I think he easily could have beaten either of the 2016-2017 Cruz & Gardbrandt era, but it would have heavily detracted from his FW legacy a bit since he was getting all his rematches at that point