Most of the attention UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen has been getting is focused on the main event, mostly because nobody knows what to expect from either of the head-case fighters involved. However, while Anderson Silva is the #2 fighter pound-for-pound in the world, two others on that pound-for-pound list, Thiago Alves and Jon Fitch, are finally rematching in a fight that is headliner-quality for any serious fan of the sport. All in all, this should be a fantastic card.
Champ Anderson Silva (-400) vs. Chael Sonnen (+350) (for middleweight title) 
Chael Sonnen has put an incredible amount of pressure on himself in this fight. Many fighters have folded under just the pressure of being in a career-defining fight against a fighter regarded as the best in the world. Sonnen has piled additional pressure on top of that by endlessly running his mouth. The actual content and borderline or outright race-baiting of Sonnen are a topic for another time, but it’s clear that Sonnen’s mouth has written an enormous check that he’s going to be hard-pressed to cash.
Anderson Silva is still himself. He might have a few screws loose, but he’s still a fabulous fighter with preternatural power and talent. He understands how to win and how to control a fight. He will most likely hit Sonnen hard early in the fight, and then fans will have to see if Sonnen mentally quits, like so many other fighters have. Silva’s level of power seems to be a step beyond most other fighters, almost as if he’s cheating. Fighters like Nate Marquardt or Dan Henderson, who have reputations for extreme durability, were completely blown away when hit with solid shots and reverted to whipped children just trying to make the hurting stop. If Sonnen gets hit like that and starts thinking about how crappy he’s going to feel if he loses, he could mentally break very fast.
Style-wise, there’s not much new to this fight. Sonnen is an excellent wrestler that can get work done on top but isn’t a big threat to lay down serious punishment. Silva is the most dangerous striker in the game, and has a very, very good guard that has shut down much better grapplers than Sonnen. In order for Sonnen to win, he needs to get Silva down early and often, and work him hard enough to make sure he’s not a threat in the later rounds. Silva is very durable, with his past weakness being submissions, which is not Sonnen’s forte at all. For Silva to win, he just needs to find an opening somewhere in those five rounds to land a big shot and zap Sonnen out of the fight.
Aside from the fact that his opponent is not much of a finishing threat, Silva’s other advantage is that he makes his striking work by controlling distance. Much of Maia and Leites’ failure to get him to the floor for much of their fights was not just because those men are inferior wrestlers, but because Silva wouldn’t let them get anywhere near him. He would punish them and move away. Eventually Maia and Leites just froze in the headlights, unwilling to move forward into more punishment. It will be very interesting to see how Sonnen copes with it if he’s put into a similar position. Sonnen is a fabulous wrestler and, like most wrestlers, extremely mentally strong. He may not have to weather that much punishment to get the fight to the ground, and he may be better able to weather punishment than previous Silva challengers.
Sonnen’s been surprisingly submission-prone throughout his career, most recently nearly getting polished off by a battered Nate Marquardt throwing on a last-ditch guillotine. Silva’s guard is excellent at this point, so he may be able to submit Sonnen at some point in the fight if Sonnen tries to take a nap on top. In short, while Sonnen taking Silva down for five rounds and riding him out will be tought, it IS possible. Still, five rounds with the most offensively potent fighter in the game is a very long time to go without begging crushed, so Sonnen can’t be expected to win this. Anderson Silva by KO round 2.
Thiago Alves (-110) vs. Jon Fitch (EVEN)
This is the most interesting rematch in a long time. In their first meeting Fitch was already establishing himself as a perennially underrated and underappreciated grinder that would chew up quality fighters, while Alves was little more than a dangerous, but one-dimensional Muay Thai brawler. Now, with years of training and a pair of lopsided title fights under their belts, these men will meet again for what will be a completely new fight.
Alves has been on the shelf for just over a year since his defeat to GSP, and in that year Fitch has had two fights, a dominant win over a hapless Ben Saunders and a close decision over Mike Pierce, who battered Fitch at the end of the fight. Fitch is still a dominant, dangerous fighter, but all those years of blood-and-guts performances seem to be wearing on him. He’s still very strong and a grinding wrestler, but he seems slower, both in his reaction times and his explosive actions. He also seems more vulnerable to eating big shots. This does not bode well for him against Thiago.
While Thiago has made improvements in his general ground skills and sharpened up his striking, the biggest improvement has been his clinch wrestling. While a GSP knee-tap will still put him down, Alves has finally figured out how to use his enormous size and strength to his advantage in clinches, ripping even GSP out of some of his takedown attempts and staying on his feet. This is very bad news for Fitch, who relies almost exclusively on getting in on opponent’s bodies for his takedowns, with a pretty weak double-leg for such an excellent wrestler. If Thiago can shrug off Fitch’s takedowns with any regularity, Fitch is in for a very long night. If Fitch does get the takedown, he’ll probably be able to ride it out on top of Alves, although he won’t be able to do nearly as much damage as in the first fight, since Alves is much defensively stronger in every position now.
Fitch has several factors working against him in this fight. He’s always a slow starter, giving away the first round of nearly every fight he’s in. If Alves gets a freebie first round (and doesn’t finish it there while Fitch is still warming up) then he just has to land a big shot on Fitch sometime in the next two rounds to get the nod for that round and pick up the decision in the woefully short three rounder they’ll be fighting (elite fighters deserve more rounds!). Fitch will be at a big standup disadvantage as well. He managed to finish Thiago in their last tilt, due in part to Thiago being exhausted from taking a real pounding, but also from landing an absolutely enormous upkick. That kind of strike will put anyone down, and Fitch hasn’t shown any propensity before or since for landing huge power shots like that regularly. Alves is an extremely durable guy, and has proven to be an ultra-dangerous finisher. Almost anything he throws could put Fitch on his ass, meaning that while Fitch has to be in control every round to win the fight, Alves just needs to find a gap to create big offense to steal this fight.
With Alves’ improved ability to dictate the location of the fight, Fitch’s recent slowdown, and Fitch needing to close the distance right into Alves’ knees and hooks, there will be too many opportunities for the Brazilian to land the big one and take this fight. Thiago Alves by KO round 2.
I think too many people are paying too much attention to the results of the first fight and not enough to what each of these men has shown in their recent fights. Alves, with his ability to deal immediate and potentially fight-ending punishment, should be favored over the plodding Fitch.
Rafael dos Anjos (-105) vs. Clay Guida (-110)
Guida is an excellent acid test for fighters like dos Anjos. Guida picks up scrappy victories over quality fighters, then bumps his head against the ceiling of his own ability when he gets matched up against top-flight talent, only to bounce back with more wins over respectable fighters. He’s the kind of fighter every division needs, because he’s a known, durable quantity that puts on interesting fights and lets you get a good look at where fighters stand.
Dos Anjos is on a streak, but this fight will determine if he’s ready to roll with the big boys or if he needs more time in the lab. He’s improved his striking, especially his leg kicks, to the point where he may be able to out-point Guida on the feet, but he will live or die by what he does when Guida gets a hold of him. Guida is the superior wrestler, although how superior remains to be seen.
This fight will be most interesting once it hits the ground. Dos Anjos keeps a furious pace with his guardwork, and Clay Guida is all hustle on top (although it might be said that his offense is more smoke than fire). Guida leaves enough openings for a serious grappler to find opportunities to threaten him or reverse, so this fight should produce some amazing scrambles. Dos Anjos better hope he finds a submission, because if he doesn’t finish Guida, there’s no telling how the judges will score 15 minutes of groundwork. Don’t be shocked if Guida is massively outworked but gets the nod for holding top position, even though he was on the defensive throughout. Rafael dos Anjos by decision.
Ricardo Almeida (-165) vs. Matt Hughes (+145)
This is a strange matchup. The team at Zuffa know that Hughes would get run over again if put in with another monster like GSP or Alves, but they also know there’s still life in the old warhorse, and want to put him in good situations to reward his years of ultra-loyal service. That’s why it defies explanation why they put him in against a quality fighter with little name value that will probably beat him.
Almeida is no spring chicken himself, clocking in only three years younger than Hughes at 33, but whereas Hughes has seen his physical tools declines, Almeida seems to be at a point where he’s enjoying the benefits of experience without the physical drawbacks of age.
Hughes, despite finally grinding out a TKO over a very decrepit Renzo Gracie, is at a disadvantage on the feet here. Almeida has never been a standout striker, but it’s always been a big weakness in Hughes’ game. Almeida has never been a big hitter, but he should have enough of an advantage on the feet to make Hughes uncomfortable there.
Hughes, over the course of his career, took his wrestling base and became a hybrid, submission-focused wrestler with the game to hang with good BJJ players, but there’s a sprinkling of submission losses on his record that should give Almeida fans hope. Almeida is an excellent, excellent grappler and he could give Hughes fits, even from the bottom. Almeida will be especially dangerous in this fight because one of his best weapons is his guillotine. If Hughes loses focus, he could drive deep into a guillotine and get put out before you can say “country boy won’t survive”.
The intangibles are working against Hughes at this point as well. The man has always had a questionable dedication to the sport of MMA itself, although a mile-wide competitive streak made him work his ass off to win anyway. At this point Hughes knows he can’t compete with the top of the division, so it’s really questionable how seriously he takes a fight on this level, and how well he’ll prepare.
With Hughes deteriorating and disinterested, Almeida definitely has the tools to out-point him and possibly finish him. Ricardo Almeida by decision.
Junior Dos Santos (-325) vs. Roy Nelson (+310)
Roy Nelson is a skilled grappler. He is (clearly) not a high-level athlete, rippling with lightning-fast muscles ready to explode into any technique he sees an opening for. Junior Dos Santos is. While being surprisingly fit, knowing how to use your weight and being well-rounded (in every sense of the word) is enough to roll over the likes of Brendan Schaub and Stefan Struve, we’ve seen what happens when Nelson runs into a fighter that combines top-level skill with top-level athleticism, as Andre Arlovski punked him (with some help from referee Jorge Ortiz).
Nelson had trouble not getting hit by Schaub and Kimbo Slice. While being fat is a great marketing ploy and works to his advantage when he’s on the floor, it also makes him less mobile on the feet and an easier target. A boxer with as much offense as Dos Santos is going to light him up. Nelson has also shown excellent power in his punches, even if he isn’t exactly Floyd Mayweather when it comes to accuracy and technique, but Dos Santos has proven to be very, very durable in the protracted slugfest of the Crocop bout as well as the brief but brutal matches with Yvel and Gonzaga. It would be very shocking to see Nelson hurt him. Dos Santos, unlike many fighters, doesn’t just have one big-money punch. He is pretty ambidextrous, with power in both hands and a wide variety of weapons to assault Nelson with.
The one Nelson-sized question mark in Cigano’s game has been his ground skills. Fans really haven’t seen him have to work on the mat since his perfunctory submission loss to unheralded and undersized Joaquim Ferreira. It’s true that Cigano has been working with the legendary Nogueira brothers on his ground skills, but it must be remembered that not all fighters can improve in every area to an unlimited degree. Matt Hughes and Tito Ortiz never developed much of a stand-up game, and Takanori Gomi is still very vulnerable on the floor. Some fighters just have the same ceilings in some areas that the average guy off the street does.
The trick for Nelson is to get the fight to the floor. He’ll have a weight advantage, but Dos Santos is going to have more actual muscle, is taller, and is able to keep his distance with strikes. Working in Nelson’s favor is the fact that Dos Santos is an aggressive, swarming fighter that likes to close the distance with combinations, instead of staying on the outside to work single counter-strikes. This might give Nelson the opportunity he’ll desperately need to get a hold of Dos Santos and throw him down.
Unfortunately for Nelson, he’s at a huge disadvantage on the feet, and Dos Santos is capable of ending his night very quickly. On the other hand Nelson, while a skilled grappler, is not a Shinya Aoki-style instant finishing threat. He rides positions and wears on opponents, which means Cigano will likely have opportunities to escape, even if he does end up underneath Big Country. Nelson will need to ride out all three rounds without getting mashed in order to win, but Cigano just needs to string together a few quality punches to drop Nelson and take home the W. Expect Cigano to do it early. Junior Dos Santos by KO round 1.
My plays:
1.05u on Thiago Alves at (-105) to win 1u
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