The ‘Ptibull’ and the ‘Hitman’ look set to square off in the Octagon this coming March.
An early report from MMAWeekly.com, later confirmed by the ‘Pitbull’ Thiago Alves (19-8) himself, has the Brazilian facing last weekends UFC 139 winner Martin Kampmann (18-5) at an unnamed UFC event.
Alves confirmed the news with Tatame.com, telling them it was a matchup he’d ask UFC execs for.
“It was the fight I asked and I know UFC fans will love it. He has just defeated Rick Story, who had beat me before, so it’s a good fight for me”, reveals the Brazilian, on a chat with TATAME, really liking the match-up. “He’ll go for the trade of punches, he’ll come for it, so it’s a fight on which the styles really combine”.
The upcoming UFC event looks targeted for March 3, and is rumored to be another UFC on FOX show. No other details have surfaced at this time.
Alves earned his first “real” submission victory earlier this month, applying a rear-naked choke to opponent Papy Abedi at UFC 138 in England. The ‘Pitbull’ does have one other submission win, but it was a tapout due to strikes. The victory erased a loss, having suffered a unanimous decision defeat at the hands of Rick Story, who lost to Kampmann this past weekend. Alves record over his last five bouts is just 2-3 but includes a loss to welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre.
As noted, Kampmann is coming off a unanimous decision win over Story this past weekend on the main card of UFC 139 in San Jose, Calif. The win ended a two fight losing skid which saw the ‘Hitman’ drop a unanimous decision to Diego Sanchez at the UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann event, and a split decision to Jake Shields at UFC 121 just over a year ago.