UFC Fight Night 67: Condit vs. Alves

Carlos Condit (29-8-0) vs. Thiago Alves (21-9-0)

Carlos Condit attempts to end a recent rough stretch when he takes on Thiago Alves, winner of his last two bouts, at UFC Fight Night 67 in Brazil.

Condit has gone through stretches where nobody can beat him and has won five of his first six UFC matches. He lost the very first one by a split decision, but took off with five straight victories to follow, defeating his opponents by knockout three times during the period. He’s fallen on hard times of late, though, and has lost three of his past four fights while being competitive in two of the defeats with them being named “Fight of the Night.” He also earned “Fight of the Night” honors when he knocked out Kampmann early in the fourth round in August of 2013. The “Natural Born Killer” has a ton of fighting background that has earned him respect in the octagon as he’s been both a professional boxer and kick boxer before; aiding him in getting 14 knockouts in his 29 career wins. His opponent, Thiago “Pitbull” Alves, has not had quite as much experience in the multitude of rings available, but is a veteran of UFC and has been a member since 2005. He’s fought for the welterweight title belt once, losing to George St-Pierre by unanimous decision, and that started a rough stretch in which he lost three of his next five bouts. He has gotten some mojo back recently, though, with a win in each of his last two fights as the first earned “Fight of the Night” honors and the second earned him “Performance of the Night” recognition after knocking out Jordan Mein with a body kick in the second round. Overall, “Pitbull” has earned his wins by knockout 12 times and has just two submissions to his name with the other seven being a decision. This fight will be a fun one as the Swiss army knife style fighting of Condit will take on the expert Brazilian jiu-jitsu of Alves.

Condit has been a part plenty of exciting fights as he has the ability to both attack and defend his opponent in multiple ways. He lands a solid 3.19 significant strikes per minute at 40% accuracy and dominated Kampmann in his most recent victory, out-striking him 100-35 with two submission attempts. Although, in his other three most recent bouts, he has landed a mere 91 strikes compared to the 115 by his opponent and has been thrown around like a ragdoll with 22 takedowns against him. That is an area that he has always had issues with as his takedown defense is a meager 39% while he has a mediocre 50% takedown success rate with 0.54 takedowns per 15 minutes in the octagon. He takes on 2.23 significant strikes per minute while deflecting 58% of these attempts and has also done well with 1.4 submissions per 15 minutes. He will need to get back to those submission attempts as he has just three in his last two fights and did not have one in the previous three prior to that. Condit is certainly a veteran of many fighting styles, but he’ll need to find what will be most effective for him in this bout and attack with it.

Alves is a little more aggressive than his opponent in this one, landing 3.58 significant strikes per minute at a 41% accuracy. He does do better defending against his oppositions advances, though, deflecting 64% of the attempts as his fights tend to be at a quicker pace with 2.94 significant strikes landing per minute against him. There have been plenty of times in his career where he was actually on the losing end until he was able to get in that powerful strike and earn a knockout. He has rarely gone to the submission in the past, attempting a mere 0.4 per 15 minutes of fighting, but performed a nice rear naked chokehold against Papy Abedi which finished off the match at UFC 138 and proved he is more than a one trick pony. He also has just two takedowns over the past four matches, both coming against Martin Kampmann as he’s has preferred to stay upright recently. If he can get back to the mat for this one he may have a better chance with Condit’s poor defense against the move.