UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva and challenger Chael Sonnen successfully weighed in on Friday at the official weigh-ins for Saturday’s UFC 117 event in Oakland, California.
Silva weighed in at 184.5 pounds for the UFC 117 main event, while Sonnen came in exactly at 185 for tomorrow’s pay-per-view headliner.
Despite saying that his weight cut was going as planned, welterweight contender Thiago Alves missed the 170 pound limit by half a pound and will give 20-percent of his purse to Jon Fitch, who weighed in at 170.5.
The rest of the UFC 117 fight card, including heavyweight contenders Junior dos Santos and Roy Nelson, successfully made weight.
The official UFC 117 weigh-in results were:
MAIN CARD
- Champ Anderson Silva (184.5) vs. Chael Sonnen (185)
UFC Middleweight Championship - Jon Fitch (170.5) vs. Thiago Alves (171.5)*
- Matt Hughes (170.5) vs. Ricardo Almeida (170.5)
- Roy Nelson (263) vs. Junior dos Santos (240)
- Clay Guida (156) vs. Rafael dos Anjos (156)
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Dustin Hazelett (169.5) vs. Rick Story (169.5)
- Phil Davis (205.5) vs. Rodney Wallace (206)
- Johny Hendricks (171) vs. Charlie Brenneman (171)
- Tim Boetsch (206) vs. Todd Brown (206)
- Stefan Struve (247) vs. Christian Morecraft (263)
- Ben Saunders (171) vs. Dennis Hallman (171)
*Alves failed to make 171 pounds in his return to the scales. He will fight at 171.5 pounds and be fined 20% of his purse
For complete UFC 117 coverage, including live UFC 117 results tomorrow starting at 7pm ET, stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Anderson Silva
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Will these be on Spike tonight?? I’d love to watch this on TV
This will NOT be on Spike.
If you have directv, there are a few different channels that carry this. 101 and 239.
I am not sure about any other service provider other than Directv.
wow i wanna see this weigh in stare down …. dammmmn that press conference was siiick, anderson looked ready to go, how is sonnen gonna feel when “a guy that wears pink shirts” ktfo!
man sonnen has just made himself look so …. i dont even know the word for it … whats he gonna say when he loses?? i bet he wont even speak after the fight ,,,, unless one of the BIGGEST upsets happens … really doubt it though
silva wins by ko when he throws that knee as sonnen is shooting in for the takedown … 2nd rd … maybe even the 1st
agree ?? disagree??
AGREE to the max!!! im so sick of chael sonnen cant wait for him to be flat on his back out cold or submitted to sleep!
Silva by KO in Round 1….Sonnen’s mouth has made this fight way more interesting than it’s supposed to be. Respect to Silva and the way he handled the trash talk. Sonnen will look like a fool tomorrow night.
So is Alves cutting that half a pound?
He has 1 hour to shed that .5lb, if he doesn’t make it, will have to forfeit some of his purse.
LOL @ alves but i hope u make the weight.
I think it’s time for Alves to move up to MW. He’s just too big to consistently make 170 in my opinion
Agreed, he has trouble making WW and is indeed a big guy. However, with that said, I don’t think he could hang with the pinnacle of the 185 division.
I think it’s just the time off, I like Alves at WW, he’s a beast.
And what was his excuse against Hughes?
If Alves can’t make weight for a #1 contender fight, he needs to either move up or stop eating so damn many Twinkies between camps.
he’s too small for middleweight though
i think he be fine for middleweight, like look at silva vs forrest, forrest is a big LHW and Anderson looked just as big! so thiago be bigger at MW and not cutting so much weight might help him perform
He means in height!
forest inst a ‘big’ lhw, hes just taller… alves is a big ww due to his muscle
on ufc.com it says alves will fight at 171.5 and b fined 20% of his purse so im guessin he couldnt cut the .5 or they wouldnt let him
Couldn’t. He tried and failed.
Looks like Thiago Alves is the newest fighter in the UFC middleweight division. I just don’t see any way that Dana now risks putting this guy in another hyped WW fight after yet another missed weigh-in.
Besides, I don’t see him running into trouble against the likes of a Michael Bisping, Sexyama, Leben, Belcher, Wanderlei. I think he is big enough and more than talented enough to contend with those guys. The only guy I see him undermatched with at middleweight is the current champion and it’s not like he doesn’t already have that same problem at welterweight.
so if alves pulls this off does he still get his rematch?
I can’t see it happening because even if he had the belt i think he would really struggle making weight on defenses
So what happens if Alves wins the fight, since it was suppose to be a fight to determine the #1 contender?
Dang, i’m too slow. Clown asked basically the same thing while i was reading all the other comments.
Well, you’re right, this was supposed to determine the #1 contender. But that was before Thiago missed weight for the second time. This makes him a repeat offender and in my opinion, aside from failing a drug test, there are fewer things that make this company look more bush league than when one of its supposed top fighters are continuously failing to make weight.
At the end of the day, the UFC is a company and Thiago Alves is an employee and right now he has violated one of their most critical policies not once, but twice. I think win, lose, or draw, this should be Thiago’s last fight at 170.
Can Dana really let this guy become champ, and then risk an entire future PPV being flushed down the toilet when this guy doesnt make weight 1 day before he is supposed to defend his title? That destroys cards and it’s brutal for the casual fanbase.
I think that Alves not making weight makes Jake Shields’ shot at the title that much easier to get. It at least gives him more wiggle room to get into the next shot at the title (assuming Alves wins). Outside of that, not a whole lot changes. If Fitch wins, he still gets the next shot.
Totally agree. Win or lose i think this is Alves’ last WW fight. If he wins they may have Shields/Fitch fight for #1 contender, but if Fitch wins his next shot should be for the title. If that happens to be Koscheck then who knows what will happen. That’s a whole other topic though.
Shields still has to get past Kampmann for any chance at a title shot. I definitely won’t look past Kampmann again after the Paulo Thiago fight…
loved the silva sonnen stare down. its like anderson is basically saying you seriously think your in my league. so pumped for this card!!
Chael did it to Anderson first at the press conference
Is it just me or did Alves look pretty spent from his weight loss? It’s gotta be damn hard facing a strong grinder for 5 rounds after a big weight loss and especially a year off.
He has to make something happen within the first 1-2 rounds in my opinion.
He only has to fight 3 rounds. He’s always cut like 30+ lbs. I think he will be ok in the fight….maybe Dana will cut him some slack about missing weight due to his recent medical issues n long layoff. Should still be a great fight.
I’m not sure if any of you have mentioned it yet but did you notice that every fight in the main card is USA vs Brazil
All this talk about Silva and the best fight of card tonight might be Big Country and JDS. I don’t know about anybody else, but I think this fight has fireworks written on it. He ain’t pretty but, and I do love Dana White, but he hated BC on the ultimate fighter, I’d love to see him have to put him in the ring for a title shot.
Alves and Sonnen are gonna win. Silva doesnt want to fight well…….anyone, and fitch couldnt finish a fly. 2 UD wins for Alves and Sonnen. Im not getting this PPV cuz silva is on it. No point in wasting $$$$ on a guy who hasnt faught in his last 4 fights. Dont bring up the forrest fight cuz everyone knew he was to slow and forrest gave up.
so it is silva’s fault that forrest gave up, cote blew his knee out, leites kept flopping on his back, and maia was so far outclassed that silva could dance around the cage without a threat of losing. i would also like to point out that im sure the majority of people prob picked rampage and shogun to beat him but thats not how it went.anderson silva is the best SKILLED fighter in the world and if you dont want to waste money on watching him then dont but i will gladly watch him out-everything chael sonnen. (dancing included)
The MMAth for Fitch-Alves breaks down probably like this:
(rough weight cut) + (lengthy medical layoff) + (previously demonstrated minimal takedown defense) = Alves 117
(most consistent 170er not GSP) + (publicly promised title shot) + (smouldering resentment towards his disrespectful boss) = Fitch 117
Fitch > Alves
Seems pretty cut and dried to me…
Jchol how may i ask is Alvaz takedown defense minimal may i ask, Koschieck a more highly decorated wrestler and probably better wrestler of him and fitch wasnt able to take Alvez down. Im no saying Alvez is going to be able to stop every take down attempt but im sure hell be able to stop 75% minimum, which doesnt seem “minimal” 2 me and combined with his far superior striking technique and power this is a very close fight.
did you see what GSP did to him? In that fight Alves had no take down defense whatsoever.
@truemmafan – if you saw the fight, that should answer your question about a match-up that for the second time was not “very close” at all…