After scoring consecutive big wins over Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck in 2008, many thought that Thiago Alves was the future of the welterweight division.
Alves was thrust into a title fight against Georges St-Pierre at UFC 100, and many thought that he would be the toughest test of St-Pierre’s career, as Alves had completely shut down the wrestling of Koscheck in his last bout and was a force to be reckoned with on the feet.
As it turns out, St-Pierre was on a completely different level than the rest of the welterweight division, (and still is), and Alves was left to try and crawl his way back up the welterweight ladder.
Since that bout, Alves has gone 2-2 in one of the promotion’s deepest divisions, but his two wins are against a couple of very average welterweights and he has yet to prove that he is still the same fighter that we saw wrecking everyone in sight a few years ago.
Now with his return to the main event scene against Martin Kampmann at UFC on FX 2 on the horizon, Alves has left fans with more questions than answers about his potential to rise to the top of the division once again.