GSP: Thiago Alves is the biggest challenge of my career

[BlueDevil]

Friday, February 13, 2009

UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, having grown weary of answering questions related to his immediate past, has turned his attention toward the next formidable challenge placed in his path -- Thiago Alves.

“Thiago Alves, no doubt, is the biggest challenge of my career,” St. Pierre told Sherdog.com in an exclusive video interview. “He has done stuff nobody has done before. It’s going to be a very, very tough fight.”

Alves (16-3) has rattled off seven consecutive wins, the last three against top 10 welterweights Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck. Ten of the 25-year-old Brazilian destroyer’s 16 career victories have come by knockout or technical knockout, as he has emerged as perhaps the most-feared striker in the welterweight division.

St. Pierre (18-2) throttled lightweight titleholder B.J. Penn in their hyped UFC 94 rematch in January and will carry a five-fight winning streak into his next bout. Allegations of “greasing” continue to dog the 27-year-old Canadian in wake of his rout of Penn, which saw him pass the Hawaiian’s feared guard with surprising ease en route to a fourth-round TKO. Penn declined to come out of his corner for the fifth round.

“He said I was a quitter,” St. Pierre said. “I’m not the one who didn’t come back for the fifth round.”

Check out Greg Savage’s full interview with St. Pierre and watch the welterweight king discuss the Vaseline controversy involving cornermen Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson, along with what direction he thinks Penn should head after the most lopsided loss of his career.

[gracie bjj]

thiago is a true 200+ pounder that cuts weight great,bj is a 165 pounder with no weight cut,thats why he belongs in the 155lb div.no disrespect to bj cause i like him,but the talent pool just keeps growing and these hybrid fighters are popping out all over the place.bj,s the cream of the crop in the 155lb div but thats it,before gsp and alves came along bj showed he could hang with the 170lb guys and imo could still hang and prolly beat some of them.most guys that dominated thier weight classes over the years where great at cutting weight,tito used to walk around at 230 pounds in between fights,hughes used to get up to 205,chuck walks around at 230.cutting weight seems to be the way to go.the big advantage also goes to the guys like tito,hughes,chuck who are experts at cutting weight from thier wrestling days.imo i think the weigh ins should be done the day of the fights,this way the playing field would be more even,one could argue that the lighter fighter in that class should go down a weight class by cutting weight also.lets be real,if tito walks around at 230 and cuts down to 205 by dehydrating himself acouple weeks before the weigh ins, then fight night hes back up to 225+ thats a huge advantage,now lets say hes fighting a guy who walks around at 205 and is gonna weigh 205 on fight night,you see the point.anyway thanks for reading