Baffled why people are getting so worked up about this, its completely irrelevant as long as the fights get televised live. Indeed Alves and Torres will both get greater exposure thanks to this. And winthefella I have no idea what Alves-Fitch II you were watching - Alves was clearly drained as ****ed and could offer nothing in response to Fitch's limited game.
Jesus christ, is Alves your cousin or something? Top 3 welterweight? We know he's not above Fitch or Shields. He beat Hughes and a short notice Kos, so that's got him up there for sure, but top 3? Come on. And p4p, no way. He's got to do a hell of a lot more than he's done so far to get up there. I keep waiting for them to match him with Johnson or Hardy or some other guys that won't exploit his weakness on the ground; his fight with Lytel was AWESOME.
He come on strong in the 3rd round , at yet was weight drained and ****ed from the walk in !! ?? :?:huh
Did you actually watch that fight? Have you compared it to performances before and since? He looked ****ing terrible, and him "coming back" in the third round was him basically throwing with reckless abandon because he knew it was his last shot. I'm not talking ****, or taking anything away from him, it was plainly obvious that his body was destroyed for the weight cut and he still gave it everything he had. How you could possibly say that was a good performance from him is just beyond me.
Ive seen every one of Thiago Alves's fights in the UFC , please tell me where i said it was a good preformance !!! :huh i simply argued the point with you that he did not " look like **** " , because he didnt You cannot use weight drain as an excuse in this instance , if this had been a shadow of the previous Thiago Alves's we have seen i would of agree'd with you , but it wasnt , it was Fitch and Alves going about there business as they would normally , what exactly was missing from Thiago's game that has been there in the past bearing in mind his opponent ??!! :? To say that Thaigo looked " ****ing terrible " in a fight that was one sided on the score cards but in actual fact was a too and frow tactical battle is a huge compliment to Alves , because if indeed he did look like **** as you say , he gave Jon Fitch all he could handle for the 3 rounds , yes Fitch won the fight clearly IMO but that for me was down to Fitch's skill set , not Thiago being weight drained .
His weakness on the ground :huh Dude Alves trains @ ATT , he doesnt have a weak ground game My current world WW rankings (top 5) are as follows ; St Pierre Fitch Alves Condit Diaz As you can see i dont have Sheilds ranked , again opinion based .
Fitch's limited game Is this the drivvel that is being posted on this forum nowadays !!!! , Fitch is clearly the #2 WW in the world and in some people's eyes a P4P entry and he's limited !!!! Maybe a little one dimensional , but limited GFOH Edit ; i feel the UFC are showing fighters like Torres and Alves a distinct lack of respect by having them this low on the card bearing in mind the quality or lack of on the PPV card .
Er if he's one dimensional then his game is limited. And yes he is (lower end) P4P material and up there the welterweight rankings but it doesn't change the fact that all he can do is take you down and slap you from half-guard. He has no offensive grappling skills, no real ground and pound, and absolutely no stand-up. Therefore he is limited, although great at the two things he can do. And again what on earth are you talking about lack of respect. This is better for their careers. They get more exposure to win over a fanbase and I'm sure it'll make it easier to get sponsors.
And in terms of the quality of the card - there's a world title fight (obviously last), a big Vegas derby between two popular heavyweights (obvious co-main), Quinton Jackson fighing Matt Hamil (Jackson's a proven PPV draw), Brian Stann facing the debuting former Sengoku Champion Jorge Santiago. So really its about whether they get the death spot on second of the main card instead of Struve vs. Browne. Again I feel they'd get more attention and career momentum from being shown to an audience of 1million television viewers. Additionally it could be an issue of a) Zuffa wanting to boost the prelim numbers to keep Spike happy and b) wanting a strong lead-in for the ppv broadcast because of how badly UFC 125* did. *I meant 125, my bad.
Ultimatley i can say i disagree with all your points about Ficth being limited , limited is not the choice word i would use for a fighter as effective as Jon Fitch at doing what he does best . As for Fitch's stand up i truly beleive Fitch's stand up is the most underated in the UFC's WW division ; [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDmg0gB91dI&feature=related[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOemYCQubhg[/ame]
Except the fact that whenever he tries to stand with somebody with comptent striking ability he has to take them to the ground pronto.
Also, the very first fight on the main card is usually a "swing" fight. I've seen it before, nearly every fight on the undercard goes the distance so they put the first fight on the main card AFTER the main event.
Its not the first fight - usually the second is the swing bout. You always want to start off strong. But other than that good point Hopefully winfella has seen that he was being ridiculous.
Big man Your the one who labelled Jon Fitch limited !!!!!! , and made out Alves stunk out the joint because he was controlled on the ground and in the end beaten pretty convincingly in a fight were he himself had his moments , what you failed to mention is that Fitch batters world class fighters one after another easily , pretty important detail wouldnt you think . Torres Pickett is a FOTN candidate , Thiago Alves is one of the top fighters in the world , and you have the Stann Santiago and Struve , in there places . The point i was making is that if your Torres or Alves you could feel a little bit pissed to find yourself below this calibre of fighter , granted the purse's for both fighters " shouldnt be affected by this " , aside from that looking at them 4 fights in particular im most looking forward to Torres Pickett , Alves and Torres are on different levels to that of the fighters fighting above them on the card , maybe its just from a personal point id like to see them fighting in appropriate slots , when looking at the calibre of fighters involved .