This fight will be at a catchweight of 174 since Alves didn’t make weight. Thiago Alves shown in his dressing room and he looks tough. Goldberg observes that Hughes is hitting the mitts from a southpaw stance which could be the best observation he’s ever come up with.

Alves enters the arena first–they’ll likely make more of Alves nickname ‘the Pit Bull’ since the other ‘PitBull’, namely Andrei Arlovski, is no longer in the UFC. Alves KO’d judo monster Karo Parysian in his last fight. Hughes was dominated by GSP in his last fight. Hughes comes to the cage to his traditional entrance music, Bocephus singing ‘A Country Boy Can Survive’ (that would be Hank Williams, Jr. for those of you scoring at home–Bocephus is what his dad used to call him). Big fight for Hughes–off that beatdown loss to GSP he needs a decisive win to prove that he’s not past his prime.

While the fighters are introduced–don’t forget that we’ll have what will likely be the ONLY English language live play by play of World Victory Road: Sengoku 3. It starts 4 AM Eastern/1 AM Pacific from Japan….

ROUND 1:

Hughes with a takedown attempt and Alves spraws out of it nicely. Alves has his right ankle taped up. Hughes fakes a punch then goes for a takedown. Alves stuffs the initial takedown, then gets pushed to the cage. Hughes pulls guard, tries to work an armbar from the bottom but Alves escapes. Hughes eats a knee to the face, but ends up in half guard on top. Bloodthirsty Brit fans will no doubt enjoy Hughes in a lengthy ground and pound session. Hughes using Alves’ taped up ankle for a grip. Fans starting to boo now and to Herb Dean’s credit he doesn’t pull a Pavlovian reaction and stand them up. Hughes trying to pass guard but nothing doing. Alves gets to his feet but Hughes grabs a leg and holds on. Alves now on top and lands four hard punches to the face as the round ends. Hughes probably controlled the round but Alves did more damage. Alves gets it on my scorecard 10-9.

ROUND 2:

Goldberg on something of a roll makes another nice observation about how Hughes’ takedown ability has made Alves somewhat tentative with his striking. Hughes eats a hard knee to the face and is cut–looks pretty nasty. Another HUGE knee to the head by Alves and Hughes drops like he was shot. Alves dives in to finish the job but Herb Dean dives in to stop it before he can. Replays show that Hughes may have hurt his knee as he went down from that last knee strike–it looked like it buckled underneath him as he fell. Hughes’ pointed to the knee as the doctors came over to check on him–he got up slowly but it appeared that it was more due to a knee injury than being knocked unconcious.

THIAGO ALVES WINS BY TKO

Alves pulling a GSP and begging for a title shot. Dana smirks as he watches the monitor, no doubt muttering ‘make weight and I’ll think about it’. Alves looked dominant tonight and if he had made weight he’d likely be getting the title shot. Hughes being interviewed now. He’s standing on his own weight which is good, but he says that it may be ‘blown out’. He thanks Jesus, who spent a couple of months in Bettendorf, Iowa working with Hughes on his striking. Hughes calls out Serra, saying he’s got ‘one fight left in him’. From the sound of it, he’s serious about hanging it up soon…..

Thanks for joining us for the ‘matinee’ coverage of UFC 85. We’ll be back at 4 AM Eastern/1 AM Pacific for live coverage of World Victory Road: Sengoku 3 coming to you from the legendary Saitama Super Arena outside of Tokyo. We’ll see you then!