Thales Leites Agrees To Fight Alessio Sakara at UFC 101
Thales Leites
Recent middleweight title challenger Thales Leites has been tapped to replace an injured Rousimar Palhares and square off with Alessio Sakara at UFC 101 on August 8th in Philadelphia.
Leites confirmed the bout to InTheGuard.tv earlier today.
Palhares was forced to withdraw from the 185-pound bout on Saturday after suffering a broken leg during training.
“What is most important is getting back to fighting as soon as possible”, Leites told intheguard.tv, “I know that I didn’t fight well, that things didn’t go as I wanted against Anderson Silva, so nothing is better than starting again. I know that the expectations will be enormous, because now I need to show that I deserve another shot at the title. But this is good, it will give more motivation.”
Prior to his unanimous decision loss to middleweight champion Anderson Silva in April, Leites (14-2) had won five-straight UFC bouts over Pete Sell, Floyd Sword, Ryan Jensen, Nate Marquardt, and Drew McFedries. His only other career loss came in 2006 to Martin Kampmann in his UFC debut.
Sakara is 4-4 with one no contest in nine bouts inside the octagon. Sakara dropped down to middleweight from light heavyweight following a 3-3 start to his UFC career, but suffered a first-round TKO to Chris Leben last March at UFC 82 in his debut at the new weight class. In his most recent bout, “Legionarius” earned his first win at 185-pounds with a first-round knockout of Joe Vedepo at UFC Fight Night 15 last July.
For the latest UFC 101 rumors check out the MMAFrenzy.com UFC rumors section.
Tags: Alessio Sakara, Thales Leites
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I’m interested in this fight…. Could it be loser GTFO fight? We know that Alessio will “bring the fight” to Leites soo that is an interesting angle there as well….. I’m just intrigued in the reasoning behind this bout from an employer’s perspective…..
And Thales how much more motivation do you need than to fight for the title against the best MW eva? Seriously kid com’on if you can’t get up for a fight against the best for the top position in the world wtf is going to “motivate” you at all? Also I doubt you will be getting another title shot anytime soon ya kinda let everyone down with the one shot you did get, no one really expected Thales to win but hell the kid hardly even tried past the second round, motivation hmmmmmmmm makes you kinda wonder I guess.
True…True.
I’m also quite intrigued with this matchup. Mostly though because I think/hope Sakara will destroy Leites. But wouldn’t it be nice if Dana comes into the cage after the fight and personally fires the loser. YOU’RE FIIIIIRRRRRED
Leites is in no danger of leaving. If for no other reason than he stepped up to take a short notice fight and keep them from having to totally take a fight off the card.
I’m done trying to figure out what keeps Sakara around. Does Dana have a sister?
Same thing that kept Brandon Vera around when he was on his losing skid: bigger global market
I really could not care less about this fight. I mean really i lost mountains of respect for Mr. Pull Guard when he did nothing in his last fight(IMO). And Sakara..really…just go get knocked out again and go fight somewhere else…please, I’m tired of this guy just getting beat.
Neither did anything in that last fight. But I’ve already argued that one into the ground.
Isn’t it ironic that now Leites needs to redeem himself after failing to impress at “Redemption”
Sorry i fail to see the irony…
look closely, you’ll find it
Leites was freaking scared of A. silva. Who in turn didnt fnish him. man. I just hope Sakara knocks this weasel out. I hated the last fight w/ silva, probably the most disappointing fight I’ve watched.
I love Sakara…and I believe he’s still around so the UFC can tap into the Italian market. His chest tatoo makes his nippies look funny, but besides that, the guy kicks a$$. Plus, his nickname is Legionarius, which is by far the best in MMA.
I hope Sakara veats Leites down. Leites………it’s like dude! what are you still fighting for? I thought that most fighters fight to be the best and to one day get a title shot and become champion. I just want to know what Thales Leites’s reasons for still fighting are. Sakara likes to fight, whether or not he loses or wins, he always comes determined to his fights. Those are the guys that i really respect, guys like Wanderlei, Liddell, Seark, Tyson Griffin, Fitch, theses guys always come to fight, sure they lose no and then, but they’re always coming, non stop meaning: Fitch has his shot at GSP, even though GSP whipped him he never gave up, also Seark, Penn beat him up but he never took his shot for granted like Leites did.
Leites you ruined you’re one shot at the title that many other fighters at 185 would love to have and problably deserved more than you and you didn’t even try man…I hope Alessio Sakara beats the crap out of you.
HAHA…poor guy probably came out of camp thinking he had this unreal strategy to beat Silva…guy ended up looking like a fool.
There’s a lesson here…if you want to win a fight, don’t forget to fight the guy standing in front of you. You need to beat him up in order to win!
Again, that goes for both fighters. Silva looked worse because he was supposed to destroy Leites.
yeah it does go both ways,but if your comiNG in as the challenger..key word being “challenger”, you are the one who has to take the title. The champ is already the champ so Silva didn;’t have to take any unnessesary risks, but as the challenger you have to come in with everything you have or else what are you fighting for?
Sakara by tko in the late 2nd
Why Leites still in UFC? Who want to watch him? Hi is disgrace to the sport!!! After fight with Silva hi should be released, and start from a beginning…….. Fighter who afraid to fight can’t be a fighter.
You got to put a lot of blame on both Silva and Lietes. They both were fighting not to lose and Silva just did a little more than nothing to win. Leites is a good fighter and i see him submitting Sakara rather easily. Buy i have to admit it would be sweet to see Sakara to knock the crap out of him
God please Leites has proven he cannot be the champ at this weight class. He is not exciting enough to be a gatekeeper. Send this guard pulling **** to another organization.