(Suddenly, Thiago felt overcome by déjà vu. He knew he had been here before. Where had it been? In a dream? In another life? Wait, give him a minute, it’ll come to him. PicProps: Tracy Lee/Yahoo Sports)

Jon Fitch emerged victorious over Thiago Alves last night at UFC 117 in a fight that – minus the funky up-kick stoppage – looked pretty much just like the pair’s first meeting from 2006. The decision win allegedly puts Fitch in line for a future 170-pound title shot; one everyone assumes will be a do-over of his 2008 loss to Georges St. Pierre. Of course, that’s assuming GSP hangs onto the belt in his scheduled December fight against Josh Koscheck … which will be a rematch of their first fight back in 2007.

What we’re trying to say here is, provided Koscheck doesn’t throw a giant wrench in things at the end-of-the-year show, don’t expect to see any new shit from the UFC welterweight division for the next, oh, six to eight months.

(Video courtesy YouTube/Heavy)

If you don’t want to sit through 40 minutes of mostly oblivious reporters asking the same old questions that have been asked a hundred times and hearing fighters regurgitate their equally tired responses ad nauseam at yesterday’s UFC 117 pre-fight press conference, check out the above video by Heavy.com that gives you the highlights of the presser in just over seven minutes.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the clip features Chael Sonnen spinning yarns about how great of a person and fighter he is and how much of a heel Anderson Silva is.

Ironic, isn’t it?

(Either of of these guys could potentially win the opportunity Saturday night to have GSP rearrange their faces again in the New Year.)

Apparently Dana White Sides with me on my opinion that Jake Shields should have to win at least two fights in the UFC before earning a title shot.

The UFC president announced today during the pre-fight press conference for UFC 117 that the winner of Saturday night’s welterweight showdown between Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves will garner a title shot early next year.

Nicknames are like tattoos — badass when you first pick them out, generally embarrassing ten years later. And yet for some reason, they’re often the only things that MMA fighters keep forever, even as they change camps, change fighting styles, and change their hair. And while every fighter sends a message with their choice of nickname, it may not always be the message that they’re trying to send. For example, let’s say your nickname is…

A RHYME

Notable examples: Mike “Quick” Swick, “Bad” Brad Blackburn, Shannon “The Cannon” Ritch, Marvin “Beastman” Eastman
What you think it says: You’re straightforward and to-the-point. You want your nickname to stick in people’s heads.
What it really says: You spent no more than five seconds coming up with that weak bullshit.

A REFERENCE TO YOUR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Notable examples: Kamal “Prince of Persia” Shalorus, Efrain “Hecho en Mexico” Escudero, Sako “The Armenian Psycho” Chivitchian, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung
What you think it says: You’re proud of your heritage and want to represent the fighting spirit of your people.
What it really says: You will be met with boos and “U.S.A.!” chants every time you fight, even though you’ve lived in Glendale your entire life.

(Maybe Thiago should concentrate more on cutting weight, not on updating his Match.com profile)

When Thiago Alves missed a scheduled appearance at yesterday afternoon’s open UFC 117 workout, it didn’t take long for reports to surface that the American Top Team fighter, who has been plagued with weight cutting issues in the past, was having problems shedding water and that he chose to forgo the media event to focus on making weight for Friday’s weigh-in.

Alves tweeted yesterday that he just had 15 pounds to go before he makes the 170-pound limit, which is at the higher end of the poundage most fighters start cutting at the beginning of the process over a week out from their bouts.

(Images courtesy of UFC and Wikipedia)

Are you noticing a pattern here? By bizarre coincidence, the top six fights at UFC 117 (August 7th, Oakland) all feature an American fighter taking on a Brazilian fighter. It’s not an official gimmick like UFC 58′s "USA vs. Canada" setup — in which the Yanks went 5-3 against the Canucks — but it’ll be an interesting theme for the night, and hopefully the UFC will make the most of it. (Sorry Chandella, but we’ve found your replacement.) I’ll go out on a limb and say Brazil takes this event in a 4-2 rout, with Fitch and Guida scoring the only wins for the home team. Your predictions?

After the jump: Joe Rogan runs down the Hughes vs. Almeida matchup, and Jon Fitch discusses his co-headlining rematch against Thiago Alves.

(Video courtesy YouTube/ATT)

Thiago Alves received news this week that he has been waiting on for two months.

The UFC welterweight traveled from his home in Coconut Creek, Florida to New York City where he underwent his second angiogram in as many months to ensure that the medical procedure he had done on March 31 to correct a brain abnormality had healed enough for him to get back to heavy training, contact sparring, and ultimately, competing.

Doctors gave him 100 percent medical clearance,  green lighting "Pitbull" to train and compete without stipulation, and in effect, made the rematch between Alves and Jon Fitch official for UFC 117 on August 7. 

("They used Krazy Glue to fix the problem, so I guess you can say my brain is a bit more crazy now." — Thiago Alves)

Three weeks ago, and only a few days prior to his UFC 111 showdown with fellow UFC welterweight contender Jon Fitch, officials from the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB) discovered an abnormality in Thiago Alves’ brain and pulled him from the card. If left untreated, Doctors informed the 24-year-old that the affliction could have proven fatal had he incurred any brain trauma from fighting or even sparring.

NJSACB medical official, Dr. Sherry Wulkan is credited with discovering Alves’ condition from a discrepancy between a CT scan image done on the Brazilian fighter in 2005 and one he had taken a week before the ill-fated fight with Fitch. Subsequent tests revealed that an artery in Thiago’s brain was dangerously close to becoming fused with a neighboring vein.

Alves explains that although it would not necessarily have proven fatal under normal circumstances, had the two vessels joined, his chances of mortality would have increased tenfold.

(Thiago Alves learns the hard way why you should never take NyQuil before a big fight. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)

UFC president Dana White confirmed late last night that the rematch between Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves — which was postponed from UFC 111 due to concerns over Alves’s brain — will now take place at UFC 115 (June 12th, Vancouver). The fight will come four years to the month after Fitch and Alves’s first meeting at UFC Fight Night 5, which Fitch won by second round TKO. Though the Vancouver card will feature a host of compelling matchups, a main event still hasn’t been officially announced. I mean, it’s not like Chuck Liddell will be fighting Rich Franklin, after Franklin comes in to replace Tito Ortiz on The Ultimate Fighter 11, right? Pay no attention to the leaked photo of the TUF 11 set after the jump!

(Props: ATTMain)

When we first came across this clip, we immediately got bad flashbacks to Miguel Torres‘s reconstructive forehead surgery video, expecting basically the same thing but with exposed brain. Don’t worry, you’re not going to see the actual procedure here. It’s just Thiago Alves heading to the hospital on Wednesday, clearly a little nervous, and waking up later completely lucid and with no obvious signs that his skull was removed while the doctors fixed whatever was wrong with him. Actually, this Sherdog report informs us that the procedure was done to mend a malformation in the left hemisphere of his brain, and they basically went in through his groin. [Ed. note: *barfs*] Said ATT coach Ricardo Liborio: "He is really excited to get back to training and I think it is going to be hard to keep him from trying to get back too fast."

Now that the dust has settled on UFC 111, we can finally ask ourselves, "So is Thiago Alves dying or what?" The welterweight contender gave us quite a scare on Thursday when he was forced to pull out of his match against Jon Fitch due to an "irregularity in his brain," which was spotted by a pre-fight CAT Scan. The condition was reported as potentially career-ending, but luckily that doesn’t seem to be that case. Alves will undergo a minor outpatient surgery this Wednesday to address the issue, and hopes to make his return to the Octagon in May, if not sooner. Dana White confirmed the improved prognosis, telling TMZ, "He’ll be back…it’s all good."

After the jump: In celebration of Alves’s eventual return, check out this video of the Pitbull at his best.

(Jake Ellenberger, seen here working for his money like a sucker.)

Those among us who aren’t pro fighters might think that Jake Ellenberger got a pretty sweet deal today. Because Ben Saunders volunteered to step in for Thiago Alves against Jon Fitch on late notice, Ellenberger now doesn’t have to do any work on Saturday night, and yet he still gets paid as if he had fought and won. Seems like a clear-cut ‘Nice, Playa‘ situation if we ever saw one.

But according to what he told Cagewriter, Ellenberger is still a little bummed about training for weeks just to end up a spectator in Newark this weekend:

"I was disappointed. Ben Saunders asked for the fight, Dana liked that, so our fight took a backseat. …It took me by complete surprise."

(Ben Saunders: 170 pounds of knees, elbows, and unfortunate facial hair.)

With Thiago Alves out of UFC 111 due to brain irregularities, the UFC has tapped Ben Saunders to take on Jon Fitch just two days before the event. This means that Jake Ellenberger, who was originally scheduled to face Saunders as a replacement for the nauseatingly-wounded Martin Kampmann, is now screwed out of the fight he worked his tail off to prepare for. The upside is, he’s reportedly still getting his show and win money, all for doing nothing more than being cool about the whole thing. Looks like the wings and beers at a Newark-area Hooters are on Ellenberger tonight.

So what does this new match-up mean, aside from more changes to our UFC 111 FightPicker? For Saunders, it means a chance to step up in the ranks with a more high-profile victory. TMZ reports that Dana White has said he’ll give Saunders a title shot if he beats Fitch, which seems like a move that would sure piss off Josh Koscheck and Paul Daley with a quickness. Fitch has less to gain with a win over Saunders than with one over Alves, but at least he can call up his AKA teammate Mike Swick to get some scouting info on the lanky striker.

Kudos to the UFC for making lemonade out of this unfortunate batch of irregular lemons. Guess it helps to have a roster of fighters willing to scramble their plans at the last minute to accommodate your wishes.

(And just like that, the dreaded "May not be broadcast" label is wiped clean.)

UFC.com has reacted quickly to the news of Thiago Alves’s removal from the UFC 111 card, and the way things look now it appears as they’ve decided to bump the fight between Kurt Pellegrino and Fabricio Camoes up from the prelims to fill the hole in the pay-per-view broadcast. If you ask us, Ricardo Almeida/Matt Brown might have been a better choice, or even Nate Diaz/Rory Markham, but once again, no one in the UFC front office asked us. That never fails to sting the old pride, either.

The change means that all you FightPicker players are going to want to update your answers to reflect your feelings on who will win the suddenly more important Pellegrino/Camoes showdown. If you don’t it might just cost you that Apple iPad, and wouldn’t that be a shame?

TMZ breaks the awful news…

We heard chatter last night that the UFC was looking for a new opponent for Fitch, but with UFC 111 just two days away, any attempts to find a respectable replacement might be futile. A weird-looking artery in the brain is serious, scary business. Hopefully this is something that can be addressed medically so that Alves doesn’t have to retire when so much of his career was still ahead of him. We’ll update you when we get more details on the Pitbull’s health and when we know which preliminary card match will be promoted to the main card.

("The Theory of Competition." Props: Tap or Sleep via Fightlinker)

– Diego Sanchez’s amazingly drunken acceptance speech at the World MMA Awards. (Watch Kalib Run)

– The UFC 108 injury curse claims matchmaker Joe Silva. (MMA Weekly)

– Shinya Aoki sort of apologizes for awful behavior at Dynamite!! 2009. (Sherdog)

– Fitch vs. Alves rematch rescheduled for UFC 111 in March. (MMA Mania)

– "Best of PRIDE" highlight series debuts January 15th on Spike TV. (MMA Junkie)

– Rashad Evans credits Rampage Jackson with helping him cope with loss. (MMA Fighting)

– Which fighters were the biggest UFC draws in 2009? (MMA Payout)

– The worst NBA draft picks of the decade. (Bleacher Report)

– Get psyched for Bikini Model Search 2010. (Bullz-Eye)

– Five things to watch for in the Rose Bowl. (Scores Report)

– Hey, check out this monkey eating Jell-O. (Asylum)

– The top 10 New Year’s resolutions that all men should make. (Ask Men)

– Denzel Washington trains to kick ass for Book of Eli. (Screen Junkies)

– The top 10 NASCAR women of 2009. (All Left Turns)

– World leaders you didn’t know were drunk. (Made Man)

– Dominican kid goes berzerk on his classmates. (Nothing Toxic)

– Jessica Cho is your Girl of the Day. (Break)

(Mike Pierce takes Brock Larson for a ride during the "Diaz vs. Guillard" prelims in September. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Poor Jon Fitch. Two weeks ago he was "So excited!" about his rematch with Thiago Alves, which was set up when his original opponent Ricardo Almeida went down with a knee injury. But Alves soon had to pull out for the same reason, and Fitch is now faced with a nightmare scenario for any top contender — a dangerous opponent with little name-value. As reported by MMA Mania, Fitch will now compete at UFC 107 (December 12th, Memphis) against Mike Pierce, a 10-1 up-and-comer who recently scored a major upset over Brock Larson during his Octagon debut at UFC Fight Night 19. Before he joined the UFC, Pierce toiled in regional promotions where he picked up wins over TUF castmembers Mike Dolce, Mark Miller, and Paul Bradley. He’s currently riding a six-fight win streak.

Obviously, Fitch should take this one; just as he derailed Paulo Thiago‘s hype train at UFC 100 after the Brazilian scored a freak upset against Josh Koscheck, Fitch will probably do the same thing to Pierce, who’s coming off the biggest win of his career. But once again, it’s a fight that doesn’t do much to move him towards another shot at the welterweight belt. Unfortunately, when your opponents are struck down with injuries, and you’ve already had a shot at the champion, and you won’t fight Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick because of your camp affiliation, your options tend to be limited.

(It’s particularly disappointing because Thiago’s face had just returned to normal.)

When it rains, it goddamned pours. The latest big-name UFC fighter to be scratched from an end-of-year card is Thiago Alves, who just went down with a knee injury — most likely a torn posterior cruciate ligament, if you want to get specific. Alves was scheduled to rematch Jon Fitch at UFC 107, and was coming in as a replacement for Ricardo Almeida, who suffered his own knee injury last week. No word yet on how long this will keep Alves sidelined, or if Fitch will be getting a replacement-replacement opponent for the December 12th show in Memphis. Matt Hughes, if there was ever a time to shut AKA’s collective mouth, it’s now. As it stands, UFC 107′s lineup looks like this:

(Fitch vs. Alves, 6/28/06.)

Though we previously eliminated Thiago Alves in our Fitch’s-next-opponent guessing game, it turns out that the Pitbull is a strong frontrunner for Ricardo Almeida‘s replacement. A source close to the UFC told MMA Junkie that Fitch and Alves will meet at UFC 107 (December 12th, Memphis); Alves’s original opponent for the event — Paulo Thiago — will be booked in another match.

Alves is obviously a bigger name than Almeida, but Fitch’s Twitter enthusiasm still threw us off. Who gets psyched about a rematch with a guy you already beat, unless it’s for a title? Reacquaint yourself with Fitch and Alves’s UFC Fight Night 5 scrap above, which starts with Alves having to take out his tongue ring, and ends with a TKO victory for Fitch at the end of the second-round thanks to a well-placed upkick.

Photos courtesy of The Las Vegas Sun, UFC.com, Sherdog, and MMA Weekly. Click all for larger images; lots more after the jump.

(Lesnar-Mir provides a chilling preview of Lesnar-Sable later on that same night. Photo courtesy of USA Today.)

It’s time to see who’s up and who’s down after an epic weekend, and the Potato Index’s arbitrary numerical rankings system is here to help.  It’s like the stock market, only dumber.

Brock Lesnar (the fighter) +117
Sure, it was all brute force and not a lot of flashy technique.  And yes, he resembled a schoolyard bully more than a martial artist.  But the fact is Lesnar got the job done, and in convincing fashion.  Now the question is, could he beat someone his own size?

Brock Lesnar (the person) -56
We honestly didn’t think it was possible for Lesnar to hurt his own image so much even in victory.  But disrespecting everyone you can think of, from your opponent to a UFC sponsor, and then ending by suggesting that you might “get on top of” your wife (that really sounds like a satisfying sexual experience for her, BTW) is a good way to go about it.  Press conference apology was a good idea, but way too half-assed to make a dent.

(Uncontrollable giggling is probably not the reaction Brock had in mind when he got that tattoo. Photo courtesy of MMA Junkie.)

Maybe you’ve been a fan since Gerard Gordeau kicked Teila Tuli’s teeth into the second row. Maybe you’ve been a fan since Griffin and Bonnar threw down at the first TUF finale. Maybe you’re here because "UFC 100" has been a Trending Topic on Twitter all day. Whoever you are, we welcome you.

The menu for tonight: Brock Lesnar seeks Ultimate Validation against the man who humiliated him in his UFC debut. Georges St. Pierre meets the strongest, hungriest, scariest challenger of his title reign. Dan Henderson defends his country’s reputation against the British Invasion. A semi-famous blonde will hold a ring card and blow kisses to the camera. Smart-ass fans may or may not chant "Fedor!" after the final match. Minds will be blown, hearts will be broken, pants will be shat. Are you ready? Are you ready?

Round-by-round updates from the pay-per-view broadcast are after the jump. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest. Start stretching, Bruce…

From MMA Weekly:

(No, B.J.  That does not count as working on your clinch game.)

There are any number of concerns one might have about B.J. Penn’s readiness when he shows up to fight.  That he might be suffering from ‘overtraining’ is typically not one of them.  And yet, without a hint of irony, that’s what Penn says he is effectively guarding against for his UFC lightweight title fight with Kenny Florian at UFC 101.  As he tells AroundHawaii.com (via MMA Mania):

“The training’s going great for UFC 101. I’m making sure not to overtrain. And, you know we started a couple months ago, and I’m training with Marv Marinovich, and we’ll be spending our last 8 weeks in California with a bunch of good training partners, with Marv Marinovich there, Jason Parillo will be there, Rudy Valentino’s gonna fly up, so I feel VERY good about this training camp.”

Well, that’s a load off our minds.  In a related story, Thiago Alves assured reporters that he wouldn’t come in underweight for his fight with Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100, while Mark Coleman vowed not to be too young and vivacious for his bout with Stephan Bonnar.

(Props: genghiscon.wordpress.com)

Genghis Con injects some soul into the upcoming welterweight title fight at UFC 100 with this highlight of Georges St. Pierre and Thiago Alves‘s recent history. It’s a good reminder of how utterly dominant both men have been in the Octagon over the last two years. On Saturday night, the unstoppable force will meet the other unstoppable force. Time to do the man dance.

Speaking of GSP vs. Alves, Spike’s "Countdown to UFC 100" special debuts tomorrow night at 10 p.m. Check out the preview after the jump…

(Props: BerlinFC via Fightlinker)

It’s like someone set our Eras of MMA and Greatest UFC Events of All Time features to music; the above compilation summarizes the UFC’s entire history from November ’93 until now, in just four-and-a-half minutes. If this doesn’t get you amped up for UFC 100 — T-minus five days, by the way — either you’re not a UFC fan, or you have something personal against David Bowie.

(Props: ‘SmashedAceHole’ on the UG. Fight starts at the 3:03 mark.)

Before he was the UFC’s #1 welterweight contender and a Fight! magazine cover-boy, Thiago Alves was just a young scrapper whose last name was consistently butchered by announcers and commentators. Alvs’s Alvarez’s Pitbull’s eighth pro MMA match took place at a King of the Cage event in Cleveland back in February 2005, where he faced then-undefeated Jeff Cox, who entered the cage sporting maroon Aokipants and a hairstyle that might be described as a "nohawk." After missing a head kick, Alves grabbed a Thai clinch and found Cox’s snooze-button with a knee to the chin. He then fired punches into Cox’s grill until Herb Dean dove on to stop the abuse. Alves caught the attention of the UFC with the 15-second KO win, and would make his Octagon debut eight months later. All Cox got was the shame of waking up in Cleveland wearing red tights.

(Props: MMA Mania)

"It’s finding what’s called a ‘safety zone’, and that’s a place that when he’s in trouble he goes to. It could be a clinch, it could be a takedown, it could be kickboxing, wherever he feels comfortable and safe. And then you have three ways of getting around it, you can either avoid it, nullify it, or smash it…hopefully we’ll be able to exploit [Thiago Alves's safety zone] and move around it."

In this FOX Fight Game interview, Georges St. Pierre‘s trainer Greg Jackson discusses one of the most important elements of his famous game-plans — attacking an opponent not where he’s strongest or weakest, but what he falls back on when things get rough. He wouldn’t name what he thinks Alves’s safety zone is, though he does admit that Alves’s left knee and left hook are weapons to be feared. Also in the interview, Jackson describes game-planning as a structure that "the artist" has to be able to work within, and talks about the crucial balance between cooperation and competition that exists at his gym. GSP and Pitbull are scheduled to get it on in 11 days at UFC 100.

(Props: YouTube.com/UFC via MMA Mania)

Man, don’t you hate it when you’re partying at Rehab, just minding your own business, and you see your next opponent by the pool and you need a bunch of hot bikini models to hold you back? Such is the concept behind one of the photoshoots in the UFC’s new magazine (on newsstands now), and we have a feeling that Georges St. Pierre and Thiago Alves won’t be complaining about this particular promotional assignment. To be honest, GSP doesn’t seem too worked up during his staged run-in with Alves — he remains seated in his deck chair, and only requires one model to kind of half-heartedly restrain him — but the brief nipple tweak at 0:48-0:50 tells the real story: It’s time for war, mon ami.

Speaking of the UFC’s welterweight champ and #1 contender, these guys are seriously huge right now. During a UFC media conference call yesterday, Alves said he’s walking around at 191-192 pounds, and could be as much as 195 pounds when he steps into the Octagon on July 11th. GSP currently weighs about 188-190 pounds, and expects to weigh the same on fight day. Said St. Pierre: "I truly believe that in our sport, skill and technique always beat strength and size, so the guy who will win the fight is the better fighter, not the bigger guy."

After the jump: Michael "GQ Smoov" Bisping and Dan "They Made Me Put On This Sweater" Henderson have a tense staredown of their own.

(Props: MMA Mania)

What: UFC 100
When/Where: July 11th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Why: Because it’s one of the most stacked UFC cards ever. In the above trailer, Joe Rogan calls the event "fucking insane," then implies that Steve Mazzagatti screwed up Brock Lesnar‘s first fight against Frank Mir. For Brock, this fight is all about revenge. Mir thinks that if Big Nog couldn’t last two rounds with him, Brock’s chances aren’t very good.

In the night’s other title fight, Georges St. Pierre battles for his legacy against the biggest, strongest, toughest test of his career — Thiago Alves, who wants to knock out GSP, take his belt, and become "the man." Also, Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping move out of the reality show set and into the Octagon. Hendo wants to beat Bisping up and shut his mouth a little bit; Bisping wants to be responsible for the first KO loss on Dan’s record. Only on pay-per-viewwww…