{"id":781346,"date":"2026-07-05T21:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781346\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:49:08","slug":"aldo-predicts-holloway-vs-mcgregor-at-ufc-329-conor-can-knock-max-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781346\/","title":{"rendered":"Aldo predicts Holloway vs. McGregor at UFC 329: \u2018Conor can knock Max out\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jose Aldo knows better than most what Conor McGregor is capable of in the octagon, and he refused to write \u201cThe Notorious\u201d off in his UFC 329<\/a> comeback fight against Max Holloway.<\/p>\n

McGregor infamously slept Aldo just 13 seconds into their fight when they finally faced each other back in 2015. That may be why \u201cScarface\u201d is one of the few people giving his buddy Mac<\/a> a decent chance to win when he faces Holloway, who has fought the best of the best over the past five years as McGregor sat on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it\u2019s a very competitive fight,\u201d Aldo told Covers.com.<\/a> \u201cMcGregor may be the betting underdog, but honestly, I think he has a better chance of beating Max today than he had of beating Khabib back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe favorite is Max Holloway, not because he\u2019s vastly superior, but because he\u2019s still active. He\u2019s fighting regularly, coming off strong performances and staying in competition mode. Conor is an unknown quantity. We haven\u2019t seen him fight in a very long time. We don\u2019t know where his conditioning, timing or confidence are at. That\u2019s why I put Max one step ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that said, Aldo made the case for a McGregor win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean Conor can\u2019t go in there and knock [Max] out,\u201d Aldo said. \u201cThat can absolutely happen. And it wouldn\u2019t be any disgrace for Max because Conor is still a world-class striker with experience, power and the technical tools to win any fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I have Max slightly ahead, but I\u2019m a long way from saying Conor has no chance. The biggest question right now is simply which version of McGregor is going to show up on fight night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holloway was the one who ended Aldo\u2019s era<\/a> at the top of the featherweight division, beating the Brazilian in back-to-back fights with third round knockouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an extremely intelligent fighter, with very refined boxing, great fight IQ and an excellent ability to absorb shots,\u201d Aldo said of Holloway. \u201cToday he\u2019s not exactly the same fighter he was years ago because he\u2019s been through a lot of wars during his career. But he\u2019s still an exceptional fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen Holloway dismantle<\/a> so many great fighters that it\u2019s hard to imagine McGregor rising to the occasion after so many years off and so much hard partying.<\/a> But Aldo is right: McGregor is a legend for a reason. He has amazing knockout ability and even more potential power at 170 pounds.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re less than a week away from UFC 329 on July 11th and we can\u2019t wait to see what Conor and Max bring to the table in their rematch 13 years in the making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Aldo knows better than most what Conor McGregor is capable of in the octagon, and he refused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-781346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}