Thiago Alves To Rematch Jon Fitch At UFC 107After Ricardo Almeida suffered a knee injury in training, Thiago Alves has stepped in to rematch fellow top contender Jon Fitch in a featured welterweight bout at UFC 107. Fitch won the pair’s first meeting by TKO at UFC Fight Night 5 back in June of 2006.

Fitch was set to face Almeida at UFC 106, while Alves was slated to battle Brazilian compatriot Paulo Thiago as part of the UFC 107 card, but UFC President Dana White has now confirmed that Alves and Fitch will square off one more time in a pivotal showdown.

Fitch (19-3-0, 1 NC) has won 10 of his 11 fights inside the UFC and is coming off of a win over Thiago at UFC 100. His lone defeat came in a five-round title affair with reigning UFC Welterweight Champion Georges “Rush” St. Pierre.

The Purdue wrestling standout bested Alves in 2006 when he stunned him with an upkick and finished the fight with punches seconds later. It remains as the only time that Alves has been stopped with strikes to date.

However, Alves has improved greatly since their first meeting and will look to avenge one of his few UFC losses.

 

Alves (16-6-0) has won nine times in 12 tries inside the Octagon, but came up short in his title bid against St. Pierre on the UFC 100 card. He holds notable victories over Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck and a win over Fitch would place Alves right back in line as a future title contender.

He is a much different fighter from back in 2006 when he lost to Fitch and it will be interesting to see if Fitch can handle Alves’s increased strength, size and overall power, as well as his vastly improved takedown defence.

 

Fitch weathered the best strikes that St. Pierre could throw at him for five full rounds and survived to a decision, albeit a lopsided one, but Alves has emerged as one of the top strikers in the division. Fitch will need to use his wrestling to keep the fight on the ground whenever possible.

Alves has worked diligently on his takedown defence – previously his most glaring weakness – over the past two years and even St. Pierre had some difficulty in taking him down in the early rounds. If Alves can stuff Fitch’s takedowns, Fitch is in for a difficult task at UFC 107.

 

It is currently unknown when and whom Thiago will next face, but he may remain on the UFC 107 card against a different opponent.

UFC 107: “Penn vs Sanchez” takes place on December 12th at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee. It is headlined by a UFC Lightweight Championship bout between “The Prodigy” BJ Penn and Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez.