Tag: Jon Fitch

Mike Dolce Says He’ll Fix Thiago Alves’ Weight Problems for Good

Filed under: UFCFor a man in Mike Dolce’s line of work, watching Thiago Alves miss weight by a half-pound before UFC 117 last week wasn’t just aggravating, it was downright painful.

“It hurts me,” Dolce, an MMA fighter, self-styled nutritionist, and l…

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For a man in Mike Dolce‘s line of work, watching Thiago Alves miss weight by a half-pound before UFC 117 last week wasn’t just aggravating, it was downright painful.

“It hurts me,” Dolce, an MMA fighter, self-styled nutritionist, and lifestyle guru, told MMA Fighting. “It hurts my soul to see these guys work so hard in the gym their whole damn lives, get to the UFC, the biggest stage for MMA in the world, and have it all go to sh-t the couple days before the weigh-in just because they haven’t learned the right information or they’re listening to the wrong people.”

That’s why Dolce wasted no time in getting in contact with Alves’ manager with a very simple offer to help “The Pitbull” put these problems behind him once and for all.

Falling Action: Best and Worst of UFC 117

Filed under: UFCAs Anderson Silva made his way to the Octagon in Oakland on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen paced around inside the cage, staring Silva down and beckoning for him to come on inside and get a piece. It was classic pro wrestling-style stuff,…

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As Anderson Silva made his way to the Octagon in Oakland on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen paced around inside the cage, staring Silva down and beckoning for him to come on inside and get a piece. It was classic pro wrestling-style stuff, and it perfectly complimented Sonnen’s entire pre-fight schtick.

That was something I expected from Sonnen on fight night. It was what happened after that really surprised me.

As Silva reminded us several times, talking is easy. Doing it as well and in as consistently entertaining a fashion as Sonnen is a little harder, but it’s still nothing compared to going toe-to-toe with the pound-for-pound best in the sport. Sonnen’s pre-fight routine seemed like an act, but his performance in the fight proved that even if no one else believed he could back up those words, he never doubted it for a second.

Five Things We Learned at UFC 117

(If there’s one thing that Junior hates, it’s the Safety Dance. Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.)
UFC 117 not only produced a dramatic night of fights, it also provided answers to a lot of burning questions. Here’s what we know, now that the dust has …

Roy Nelson Junior Dos Santos UFC 117
(If there’s one thing that Junior hates, it’s the Safety Dance. Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.)

UFC 117 not only produced a dramatic night of fights, it also provided answers to a lot of burning questions. Here’s what we know, now that the dust has settled in Oakland. (Figuratively speaking. Obviously, there’s still a ton of dust floating around in Oakland.)

Junior Dos Santos Is Not Superhuman 
In round one, he did what we expected him to: beat Roy Nelson like a mulleted heavy-bag. But when Roy managed to survive the onslaught — massive props to Big Country, by the way — Dos Santos visibly slowed down and couldn’t inflict as much damage as he did in the opening frame. The fight didn’t bode well for JDS’s chances against the Lesnar/Velasquez winner. As we saw at UFC 116, Brock can take a brutal beating and come back for round 2 fresh as a daisy.

Matt Hughes Is Still a Threat
When Hughes suffered back-to-back losses to Georges St. Pierre (at UFC 79) and Thiago Alves (at UFC 85), it seemed that his days as a competitor were swirling down the drain. Hughes’s blanket-ish return performance against Matt Serra didn’t prove much, considering Serra’s injuries and ring rust, and his beatdown of Renzo Gracie in Abu Dhabi said more about the loser than the winner. But smashing Ricardo Almeida standing, then choking him out with a front headlock in the first round? That’s a huge feather in Hughes’s cap. This was not a "master’s division"-type fight; Almeida was a legitimate welterweight player, who was coming off his third consecutive win against Matt Brown at UFC 111. Hughes may be more interested in hunting than fighting at this point, but he’s a contender again. The question is: Which Gracie-associated fighter can he get next?

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UFC 117 Live Blog: Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves Updates

Filed under: UFCThis is the UFC 117 live blog for Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves, a welterweight bout on tonight’s pay-per-view from the Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif.

Fitch vs. Alves is a rematch from UFC Fight Night 5 in June 2006 where Fitch won by TK…

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This is the UFC 117 live blog for Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves, a welterweight bout on tonight’s pay-per-view from the Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif.

Fitch vs. Alves is a rematch from UFC Fight Night 5 in June 2006 where Fitch won by TKO. The winner of this fight will face the winner of Josh Koscheck vs. Georges St-Pierre.

The live blog is below.

UFC 117: Jon Fitch Dominates Thiago Alves

Filed under: UFC, NewsJon Fitch did what he usually does Saturday night at UFC 117, taking Thiago Alves down over and over again, controlling him on the ground, and grinding out a unanimous decision victory.

Fitch has now won by unanimous decision in …

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Jon Fitch did what he usually does Saturday night at UFC 117, taking Thiago Alves down over and over again, controlling him on the ground, and grinding out a unanimous decision victory.

Fitch has now won by unanimous decision in each of his last five fights, and he has clearly established himself as the No. 2 welterweight in MMA, behind only UFC champion Georges St. Pierre.

Chael Sonnen Loses a Heartbreaker to Anderson Silva at UFC 117

Filed under: UFC, NewsOAKLAND, Calif. — Through four and a half rounds of fighting at UFC 117 on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen was the better man. But as UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva demonstrated with a late triangle choke submission, all it t…

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Anderson Silva kicks Chael Sonnen in the main event of UFC 117.OAKLAND, Calif. — Through four and a half rounds of fighting at UFC 117 on Saturday night, Chael Sonnen was the better man. But as UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva demonstrated with a late triangle choke submission, all it takes is a few seconds for an improbable triumph to turn into a heartbreaking defeat.

“I’m devastated,” Sonnen said at the post-fight press conference. “I worked hard and did what I could do all that nice stuff, but at the end of the day you either get your hand raised or you don’t, and I didn’t.”

Sonnen did exactly what he said he’d do to the champion for twenty-three straight minutes. He took him down, roughed him up, and seemed well on his way to a clear-cut, unanimous decision victory. Perhaps most improbably, he also staggered Silva in the stand-up exchanges at several points in the fight.