UFC 117 REVIEW PART 6: FITCH VS. ALVES

Activity level. That’s pretty much what made this fight. During the weigh-in, Thiago Alves supposedly could not make the weight by half a pound and refused to cut it, choosing instead to lose 20% of his purse. With the money he’s currently making with the UFC, that’s a pretty huge sum, and something not a lot of people would agree worth losing over cutting only half a pound. But when you’re willing to lose a tremendous amount of cash just to avoid losing that little weight, you know something’s wrong.

ALVES' SURGERY

This fight was originally supposed to take place at UFC 107,but an anomaly of some sort in his brain that required immediate surgery forced him to drop out. As one would expect, it was quite a harrowing time for Alves, but the surgery was a complete success and he recovered very quickly from it.

REVENGE!

Alves had previously lost to Fitch at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 5, way back in 2006, so this is yet another revenge match on the card. Another interesting motivation is that whoever wins this fight gets the top contender spot against the winner of the St-Pierre / Koscheck fight at UFC 124. Alves certainly had a lot riding on this fight. Unfortunately, his performance didn’t really show it. While he wasn’t exactly lazy throughout the fight, his activity level seemed rather lackluster, especially compared to that of his opponent’s.

Fitch was very active throughout the fight, and, as usual, showed no signs of slowing down. He was very active on the feet, mixing up quite nicely with combinations, and on the ground.

LACKLUSTER PERFORMANCE?

Comparatively, Alves seemed to lack motivation in that he didn’t look like he was doing enough to win the fight. Color commentator Joe Rogan surmised that something went terribly wrong with his weight cutting that not only prevented him from making weight and thus lose 20% of his purse, but also completely sap his activity level. Alves is, as his nickname implies, a true Pit-bull in the Octagon: always active and always aggressive.

But that night, he seemed just the opposite. People thought that he would at least try to up his activity levels in the third and final round, especially after he so clearly lost the first two on points, but nothing changed.

The fight thus goes to Jon Fitch, who showed a tremendous performance as always on the ground and on the feet. He gets the title shot against the winner of the St-Pierre / Koscheck matchup.

Check out the rest of my UFC 117 reviews and drop on over the official UFC website for more amazing photos of the event!