UFC 117 has a lot to offer to the viewing public. A match up of the widely hailed P4P king versus the brash upstart oozing braggadocio. A battle of hard hitting heavyweights with Brock Lesnar in the offing. A Hall of Famer looking to add another notch on his belt denoting his wins over the Gracie camp. All of these have their own unique attraction, but the fight that has the most allure to me is the show down between the two best welterweights in the world that don’t have the initials GSP. The match-up is one where both men are faced with a quiet desperation, the impact of a win or loss greatly altering their career path going forward. Much like soccer teams in England’s Premier Division, Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves head into their UFC 117 bout facing a match that will essentially resemble a relegation scenario. Win and you’re in, title shot contention that is, with a chance to recapture a glory that escaped them the first time. Lose, and you face a long and arduous road back to title shot contention, one that might never end in a second shot at Georges St Pierre’s title.
Josh Koschek is next in line for a shot at the popular French-Canadian welterweight champion, with a showdown scheduled tentatively for December 2010. Jake Shields entry into the UFC is also likely to provide a further complication to the winner of the Alves -Fitch bout getting a timely title shot. Shields was seen by most observers to be a Top 5 welterweight before stepping up in weight and capturing the Strikeforce middleweight championship. Shields WW reputation and win over Top 10 fighter Martin Kampman will provide a fresh and intriguing match-up for GSP, one that will be highly enticing for the UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and the Zuffa braintrust. With GSP fight schedule rarely accommodating more than two fights a year, a late Spring 2011 match-up with Shields would push back the Alves-Fitch winner to a late 2011/early 2012 bout for the belt. The Winner will then have to avoid the Karo effect (getting a title shot and then losing it before cashing in) as they await the passage of time until GSP’s dance card clears. Such a long delay will be daunting for the winner, but the fate of the loser is much more bleak.
The loser will have lost, but he will still be too dangerous to place as a roadblock to a contender being built towards a title shot. The loser will envisage a future of after the fact match-ups, in that they will most likely be facing fighters on the back side of getting a title shot. As the competitors face the wrestling buzzsaw that is Georges St Pierre and fall prey to another five round decision loss, the parting gift on the back end will be a Boilermaker or a Pitbull. Interspersed in these match-ups for the Alves-Fitch loser will be the fights that resemble a dead end road when it comes finding the road map back to a title shot. Fitch has seen this somewhat already with fights against the likes of Gono and Pierce. With these two scenarios providing a bulk of your schedule, building a portfolio of fights that will earn another shot at the welterweight belt will be a tall order, not a an impossibility but essentially a longshot. It is these starkly different futures that await the fighters that make this showdown probably the most engrossing bout on the card.