What Chad Mendes learned from his first fight with Jose Aldo

Let's start by agreeing that there is no such thing as a lucky punch in a prizefight.

Fighters who stand across from each other in a cage or a ring intend to hit the other, as hard as possible in the most vulnerable areas.

But far too often when a sudden knockout occurs, particularly in the early stages of a match, it's regarded as a lucky punch, or kick, or knee, or whatever kind of strike it might be that ends a fight.

When one man intends to punch the other, and then does it successfully to temporarily knock him cold, how exactly is that luck?

Luck is walking into a bar with your belly hanging over your belt and a three-day growth covering your face and walking out arm-in-arm with Scarlett Johansson or Kate Upton.

Given that, we can all agree that Jose Aldo's spectacular first-round knockout of Chad Mendes at UFC 142 on Jan. 14, 2012, was the result of amazing skill by Aldo and not a fluke in any way.

But nearly three years later, Mendes is back for another crack at the UFC's featherweight king. Aldo hasn't been the vicious killer post-Mendes that he was before, but he's reeled off three consecutive wins without really being challenged.

They will meet Saturday in Rio de Janeiro in the main event of UFC 179 and it will be incumbent upon Mendes to be able to do something to change the outcome.

Mendes is a wrestler and it's almost impossible to conceive of a way for him to win without somehow using his wrestling. But he wasn't able to get Aldo down for any length of time in that first fight, which ended when Aldo connected with a beautiful flying knee that ended the bout at 4:59 of the first.

"We knew going into that last fight that it was going to take a while before the wrestling began to have an impact on the fight," Mendes said. "In wrestling when you're facing a top-level opponent, it sometimes takes four, five shots before you actually get a takedown. We call it chain wrestling.

"It's something that goes along with the wrestling mentality, being able to grind and bridge your opponent. It's tiring being on defense like that. It's tiring defending takedowns all the time. The goal was to get in there and put the pressure on him. I knew I wouldn't necessarily get the takedown on the first attempt, but to be relentless and keep coming and keep coming because I knew it would tire him out."

Mendes has been the target of much verbal abuse from brash featherweight contender Conor McGregor, the UFC's new darling and would-be poster boy.

McGregor is trying to make his name by trash-talking just about anyone and everyone he's asked about. And at the post-fight news conference on Sept. 27 following his win over Dustin Poirier, McGregor verbally assaulted both Mendes and Aldo.

As much as Mendes dislikes McGregor, though, he couldn't disagree much with the Irishman's assessment of Aldo.

"I believe I would dismantle both of them," McGregor boasted of Aldo and Mendes. "Chad is a 5-foot-6, overblown [guy who] should be a 125-er, but he's gone past that limit now. Now he's just a little small bodybuilder stuck in the 145-pound division, and he gets tired quick. He's 5-foot-6 with a 65-inch reach. I have an eight-inch reach advantage on him. I tower over him. I would maul Chad.

"Jose is in this situation where he has got to a stage where he's happy with his level. I feel he's in that pattern of deterioration. Again, another easy win."

Mendes said Aldo hasn't backslid at all since they last met, but he agreed with McGregor's point that he hasn't improved.

Mendes insists he's made tremendous improvements since the first bout, but said he believes Aldo has been stagnant.

If Aldo has come back to the pack and Mendes is a better fighter than he was in 2012, that could be the way that Aldo's lengthy reign could end on Saturday.

"As much as I hate to say it, but I agree with the little twerp: Conor is right," Mendes said. "Aldo really hasn't changed anything up. He hasn't made any major improvements. I feel he's good at the things he does, and he's been beating people with that, so he hasn't had incentive to try to [improve] and make those giant gains.

"I have. I had holes in my game and I fixed a lot of things. I made huge improvements. I'm nowhere near the same fighter I was."

The beauty of sports is always the unpredictability. The Cleveland Browns opened the 1989 NFL season by routing the arch-rival Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh, 51-0.

Three weeks later in a rematch, the Steelers defeated the Browns 17-7 in Cleveland.

Mendes was on the wrong side of the equivalent of a 51-0 blowout the last time around. And he's fighting yet again in Brazil, where he didn't want to be in the first place.

None of it, though, matters. He's confident he'll turn it around.

"That was a great learning experience for me," Mendes said. "I can't tell you how much going through that and looking at my game so carefully after that fight and figuring out what I needed to do has changed me.

"It's like, I'm a different guy now. I know I've made huge improvements and I'm not intimidated or scared. I'm ready to do it and bring that belt back home with me."