Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch UFC 117 Winner Gets Welterweight Title Shot
The winner of the UFC 117 rematch between welterweight contenders Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves will get a title shot against the winner of a December matchup between current 170-pound champ Georges St-Pierre and challenger Josh Koscheck, UFC President Dana White announced at the UFC 117 pre-fight press conference on Thursday in Oakland, California.
Fitch (22-3) came up short in his first bid for the title as he dropped a unanimous decision to St-Pierre in August 2008, but has bounced back with four-straight unanimous decisions over Akihiro Gono, Paulo Thiago, Mike Pierce, and Ben Saunders.
After suffering a second-round TKO to Fitch in their first meeting in 2006, Alves (16-6) won seven-straight over the likes of Matt Hughes and Koscheck before losing a unanimous decision to St-Pierre last July at UFC 100 in his most-recent fight.
Fitch has said that he’ll move up to middleweight should Koscheck win the title to avoid fighting his American Kickboxing Academy teammate.
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Makes no sense to me. Alves is out for close to, if not, a year and should he win he will get a shot? And fitch, yes he has some wins since gsp but nothing so impressive as to get a title shot. DISAGREE!
Disagree about Fitch… The fact that he has won four straight fights since his loss to GSP (his only loss in the UFC) means Fitch should get a title shot.
Alves definitely does NOT deserve a title shot if he beats Fitch. So Fitch wins 4 times and still has to qualify for another shot, while Alves only has to get 1 win in order to get his title shot?!
@c-walk – that bit of Dana White “logic” is based on the fact that DW just doesn’t particularly like AKA in general, Fitch in particular, Fitch’s public refusal to fight a teammate, or his tacit refusal to change his incredible successful fight style to impress the casual fan who wants to see the sport become a live action version of Undisputed.
Or Tekken…
“Disagree?”
Seriously?
Jon Fitch has lost one fight in nearly 8 years, and that was a decision loss to GSP. Its not like he got hooked and subbed or KTFO’ed.
Since then he’s gone 4-0 while putting on amazing displays of fightplanning and Octagon control, and with an Alves win would go 5-0.
He’s the number 2 ranked 170er in the world, and with a hypothetical win over the number 3 170er in the UFC, who exactly should he fight next to “earn” a title shot in your POV?
Everyone else is ranked LOWER than Fitch for a simple reason.
They aren’t as good as he is.
And if I were wrong, one of them would have beaten him. Alves will get a second chance. If he fails, what possible reasoning can be applied here to deny Fitch a title rematch??
Tell’em Jcohl. These are the two best WW besides GSP. Hands down. Discussion over!!!
I have to agree, I think Fitch or Alves would give GSP a better fight than Kos..
fitch deserves it but alves does not IMO
it will be weird if alves wins just because he just lost to gsp his last fight
Well if Alves wins this fight its going to be another long layoff until he fights again. GSP fight Kos is December. So it would be March at the earliest?
Wow.
I’m guessing Dana White will be sitting cageside wearing Alves’ 117 walkout wear when this fight drops…
I remember reading something along the lines of Jon Fitch saying that if Kos ever became champ that he (Fitch) would simply move up to middleweight, so it’s possible that a Fitch win plus a Kos win would produce a #1 contender other than Fitch/Alvez. By defualt pretty much.
So who does the winner of shields vs kampann get? Wow, dana must think highly of Alves because here is Jon Fitch who’s coming off 3 wins in a row since he lost to my boy GSP and Alves who hasn’t even fought since GSP and if alves wins, it would be his first win/fight in a year and he would get the same reward as fitch?? Guess we’re going to see a rematch of GSP and either alves and fitch :)
Terrible decision by Dana, Alves in no way deserves another title shot after being off for a year and getting one victory and does anyone think that a GSP-Fitch rematch would go any differently than the first time. In the even Kos wins, GSP deserves a rematch before anyone.
Depending on how Koscheck would theoretically win the fight and the title [bad decision, freak injury, improper stoppage based on a fake eye poke, etc], GSP could and probably would receive an immediate rematch.
Thats been a developing UFC unoffical policy, following the example of perceived shady title decisions like Rua-Machida 1 and Penn-Edgar.
And it most certainly is NOT a “terrible decision” by Dana White.
Alves and Fitch are the top 2 PROVEN 170ers in the UFC, and by extension all of MMA.
If these guys aren’t fighting for a title shot, then why are they fighting at all?
Who should be fighting for a 170 title shot, guys from the prelims?
Fights like this makes FAR more sense in terms of the sport than sideshow matchmaking whose sole purpose is generating revenue…
lets go fitch
didnt dana already say the same thing about shields vs kampmann though. if fitch wins his usual dominant ud and shields or kampmann wins via spectacular we”ll see if this holds up
I also think Alves should have one more fight before getting the title shot. Maybe if he gets through Fitch then have him fight the winner of the Kammpmam vs Shields fight, or the winner of the Hardy vs Condit fight. If he could go through Fitch and any one of those four then I think it would make more sense to everyone. The only problem is timing. Unless one of them had a quick knock out or submission, it would be a while before we could see it go down.
And about the Fitch thing….maybe Dana is looking at the level of talent that Fitch has fought since the title fight. The only decent (name) was Paulo Thiago. Not saying those other guys were bums but maybe that is what its all about. I think all those guys are tough as hell. Its not easy to put four wins in arrow like that.
Either way it would be exciting to watch.
fitch aint gonna lose, so you dont have to worry bout alves getting a title shot right away. And gsp aint gonna loose either they are hands down two of the best ww’s in the world and cant wait for the rematch. I really want to see fitch and shields go at it though eventually
Fitch totally deserves it. Even if Alves wins. (unlikely though as Fitch can do almost everything that GSP did to neutralize and pummel Alves – almost as well, and is even harder to finish than GSP and has cardio as good as GSP’s
imo
Well duh
If Alves wins He should get the shot simply because of the W – just saying that Fitch has given the best test to GSP yet, and a rematch is more promising to be competitive than anyone around except Sheilds potentially, but that’s premature.
the reason why this is a title shot is because of fitch and his 4 straight boring victories regardless, there wins!! should alves win he leap frogs over fitch. Kampmann vs Shields is simply lining up the next contender, i personally thought the winner of Kampmann vs shields would get the next title shot but to the casual ufc fan shields is an unknown so not surprised they didnt go that route.
kamp/sheilds winner would be new at least, but the alves and fitch fights against gsp were the kind of fights i like – great quality and strategy. maybe i haven’t collected enough action figures or video fight games though
definitely would be new but unfortunately not going to happen. sucks but got to live with DWs decision and get a good rematch or Fitch will be a baby and flee to middleweight and maybe then the winner of shields vs kampmann will get the shot.Or could have alves vs kos just got to wait and see
This is Dana White saying how bad do you want it. If Fitch and Kos both win, what do you do Mr. Fitch. But IMO it will be Fitch and GSP 2 with the same outcome.
I believe it will be Fitch v GSP2 as well, of course the other match-ups are possibilities, I just don’t see Kos beating Georges, and Fitch will probably beat Alves.
Some people here are saying that Dana doesn’t like Fitch or his outspokeness about not fighting a teammate, and I must admit to feeling similar…OKAY lets put it in perspective, Fitch has been fighting in the ww division, at least in the UFC, since Oct/05 (I believe his first bout was months before in July/05). Thats 5 years fighting in one weight class, his natural weight class, and his only loss in those 5 years was to the Great GSP. Now if by soem fluke Kos wins against GSP(I know some will disagree, some people think Kos has more of a chance of winning than I do) Fitch has said he will move to mw…WHAT? He’s spent his whole career trying to be the best in the world at what he does, in the ww division, and now (theoretically) because his “buddy” is champion he doesn’t want to be the best in his weight class? He would have the opportunity to fight for the belt, to become world champion, and he would turn it down…WHAT?
The last time I spoke about this I took some slack for it, I don’t care, it’s just my opinion. I know for me, if I was an mma fighter and my best friend Jeff and I were asked to fight each other for a title, neither of us would have a problem with it, maybe it’s just the way we grew up. We would understand that this is a sport, I personally don’t think there should be lines drawn saying friends shouldn’t fight. This is a competitive SPORT, a sport, it isn’t like they are agreeing to go down to the street corner and bash each other’s brains in, it’s supposed to be a competition to see who is the best.
Now don’t get me wrong, a part of me can see the reasoning, besides being buddies they also train together and maybe both think that the other guy might have some kind of advantage because of training so closely.
It’s just my personal opinion that we don’t need boyfriends in mma, and this isn’t because I want to see 2 friends beat the he77 out of each other, I just want to see the best guys in the world competing against the best guys in the world.
Not that any of this matters right now anyway, Kos is a P.O.S. and is gonna get smashed by my boy Georges, and after tomorrow night we’ll see who gets to be next.
Sorry, Newfie not Newife or new wife..oops
even if gsp fights and wins against fitch , and even if the action is similar it’s still gonna be amazing
John Fitch is the Randy Couture of the welterweight division – he dominates in boring ass matches. I dislike him. I’m bored with him. I’m bored with Randy Couture and I want Jim Toney to finish him quick. And for those who think that the whole boxing champ in MMA is a joke and not good for the sport, tell me that when there’s a huge boxing invasion into MMA that’ll get all sorts of media attention and more people getting interested in MMA. That means money. And money is good for up and coming MMA fighters and boxers as well. But in the end I think that MMA will win over boxing (or keep the first place), but it just might be the best thing to have happened to the sport since, ahem, that reality show and when the ex-pro wrestler became the champ. But that’s just might be another story for another day…
But back to Fitch vs. Alves. In some twisted way I’d like Josh Koscheck to win GSP and then Fitch win Alves. ‘Cos you know they’re going to start clowning around with that “oh, I’m not going to fight my team mate” crap. And that would be hilarious. Hilarious in an Anderson Silva type way.
Imagine if Ed Soares was the manager for the AKA guys… I think my head would explode.
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-Jyri