UFC 100: St-Pierre vs. Alves

Date July 9, 2009

UFC 100: Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves

Photo: Ultimate Fighting Championship

UFC Welterweight Title Fight

Name: Georges St-Pierre
Height: 5-foot-10
Weight: 170 pounds
Age: 28
Record: 18-2 (12-2 UFC)
Key wins: B.J. Penn x2, Matt Hughes x2, Jon Fitch
Key defeats: Matt Hughes, Matt Serra

Name: Thiago Alves
Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 170 pounds
Age: 25
Record: 22-4 (9-2 UFC)
Key wins: Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, Karo Parisyan
Key defeats: Jon Fitch, Spencer Fisher

Betting odds:
Georges St-Pierre (-280) vs. Thiago Alves (+220)

Breakdown: Alves gets his shot at the welterweight belt after running through some of the top competition in the division, including Hughes, Koscheck and Parisyan. Alves will be perhaps the best striker that St-Pierre has faced as GSP’s recent fights have come against ground guys in Penn, Fitch and Serra.

Alves will have to answer early whether he can tag St-Pierre standing with some strikes. GSP has looked like a machine at 170 after completely dominant wins in his last three fights. You have to figure that St-Pierre gets a takedown at some point in the fight. How Alves reacts to being on the bottom with St-Pierre in his guard could go a long way in determining the outcome of the fight.

The best chance for a title change is if St-Pierre decides to stand and trade with Alves. The beauty of St-Pierre however is he is skilled at everything and is like Dan Henderson in the way that he’ll try to fight you in the area that he feels is your biggest weakness. That’s why I don’t expect St-Pierre to stand and trade with Alves. Expect him to keep him at bay early with a lot of kicks, and then try to shoot in and close the distance between the two and either get the fight to the ground or mix up in a lot of dirty fighting against the cage.

The spotlight is on Alves in a way it hasn’t been before. All the pressure is on him, and we’ll see how he responds to it, but in the end, I don’t think he has enough to take out a man who is unquestionably on pace for a superfight for the ages against Anderson Silva in the future.

Prediction: Georges St-Pierre by TKO (strikes) in Round 2.

Category Posted in Fights