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Matt Hughes vs. Thiago Alves to Main Event UFC 85

Thiago Alves will get the biggest chance of his career when he steps in the Octagon against Matt Hughes on June 7th. This main event replaces the original of Chuck Liddell versus Rashad Evans since Liddell had to withdraw due to an injury.

Hughes has not fought since his lost to Georges St. Pierre in December. This fight puts to rest any and all talk of Hughes retiring after the St. Pierre fight. In fact, after this fight he plans on facing Matt Serra to settle their long-standing feud.

Alves is coming off of a stunning upset of Karo Parisyan at the last UFC Fight Night on April 2nd. Alves is on a five fight win streak and last lost in the UFC to Jon Fitch in June 2006.

Hughes, a future Hall of Famer, is a great wrestler with phenomenal strength for his size. He does have several questions to answer, however. His only win in the last year and a half has come against Chris Lytle. Several people have said Hughes has lost it and should just retire. I disagree whole heartedly. Hughes only problem is he’s fought two fights against the best fighter in the world and a man to which he has no answers for, GSP. Hughes does need to be careful not to overlook Alves in preparation for his future fight with Serra.

Thiago Alves isn’t nicknamed “Pit Bull” for nothing. The 24-year old Brazilian is one of the more aggressive fighters in the UFC. He has four straight TKO victories and a win over Hughes would catapult Alves to the top of the Welterweight division. Alves is a great striker and is well versed in jiu-jitsu.

Hughes’ strategy is no secret-he will look to take Alves to the ground and use his ground and pound for the victory. Alves might want to keep the fight on his feet as long as possible to try and tire Hughes out. Either way, this should be a very good fight.

This is the splash that UFC President Dana White could have made, but Matt Hughes and Thiago Alves should provide plenty of fireworks and entertainment.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Rashad Evans, Jon Fitch, Chuck Liddell, Thiago Alves, Dana White, Georges St-Pierre, Pay-Per-View, Matt Hughes, Matt Serra, UFC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.